The Rev. Canon Altagracia Pérez-Bullard, Ph.D., is the Director of Contextual Ministry and Assistant Professor of Practical Theology. She joined the faculty in 2019. Her areas of expertise include practical theology, Latinx ministry, congregational development, education psychology, youth development, and community organizing.
Before coming to VTS, Dr. Pérez-Bullard served as the Canon for Congregational Vitality in the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Through church leadership development, both lay and clergy, she assisted congregations as they engaged and collaborated with their changing contexts to bring new life to their communities.
Dr. Pérez-Bullard holds a Ph.D. in Practical Theology from Claremont School of Theology, CA, an M.Div. and STM from Union Theological Seminary, New York and B.S. in Educational Psychology from New York University.
She has served the Church for thirty years as a community leader, youth minister, and priest in the Dioceses of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. As the rector in Los Angeles of St. Philip’s, LA and Holy Faith, Inglewood, she led multicultural, bilingual congregations engaged in serving and ministering to the wider community. She also served as Dean of Deanery IV, El Centro, and Director of the Episcopal Urban Intern Program.
Dr. Pérez-Bullard has brought leadership to the issues of HIV/AIDS, youth violence, worker justice and a living wage, health disparities in communities of color, housing, and community empowerment. In each of these areas, she has sought to build bridges and create alliances between communities across lines of difference, whether they are characterized by race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, or physical and mental abilities. She worked with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), Jubilee Consortium, Coalition L.A., UNITE–HERE, Housing Authority for the City of Los Angeles, and President Clinton’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. In the Church, she has served as a deputy to the General Convention, on the Program, Budget, and Finance Committee, as CREDO faculty, as well as on Diocesan Standing Committee, and other Diocesan Commissions.
She and her wife Cynthia Bullard-Pérez enjoy the blessings and challenges that are their children Santana, Altagracia Immanuel, Joshua, and Jasmine.
Linked Publications
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Latino/a Theology, Orlando O. Espin, ed., Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex, 2015.
Anglican Theological Review 101, no.4 (2019): 625-650.
in Fearful Times; Living Faith, edited by Robert Boak Slocum and Martyn Percy, Wipf and Stock, 2021.
Anglican Theological Review, Winter 2023, Vol. 105 No. 1