Remembering Venerable Harvard Pastor Peter Gomes

05:29

March 01, 2011

Rev. Peter Gomes spends a moment inside Sparks House at Harvard University, in 2002. (Courtesy Kris Snibbe/Harvard University News Office)

Rev. Peter Gomes passed away Monday night of a heart attack and brain aneurysm. He was 68 years old.

Gomes was a professor at Harvard's Divinity School and a minister at the Cambridge's Memorial Church, where his deep, stentorian voice had resounded off the walls since he was hired as an assistant minister in 1970. And he continued to preach there until he fell ill last year.

Rev. Gomes is not easy to categorize. He was black and for much much of his life a Republican. And in 1991 he announced that he was also "a Christian who happens as well to be gay."

Guest:

Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies, Harvard University

This segment aired on March 1, 2011.