YOUTH LEAGUE: The new San Fernando Valley...

YOUTH LEAGUE: The new San Fernando Valley Progressive Interfaith Youth League, initiated by members of a Northridge synagogue, is meeting a second time today to foster caring relationships across religious and ethnic lines.

Youth groups from the Pacoima United Methodist Church, Pacoima Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Northridge Islamic Center, Calvary Presbyterian Korean Church, the Lutheran Church of the Master, along with the initiators, who are from Temple Ahavat Shalom in Northridge, met in June. The goals they adopted include promoting “understanding, education, well-being and mutual respect among our varied faiths.”

Rabbi Ronald Stern, associate rabbi at the Northridge Reform temple, said all youth groups based in religious congregations are welcome to join and that the interfaith league’s decisions are made by the youths themselves. Stern said, however, that the group is not prepared in its early stages to accommodate religiously unaffiliated youths.

The group’s goals include “overcoming prejudice as beacons of hope, acting now to love one another, promote peace and abolish ignorance.” The youths also said that no proselytizing is allowed at league functions.

For information, contact Stern at (818) 360-2258.

ACTOR-PRIEST: Benedictine Father Robert Lussier, a longtime film and television actor who was ordained a priest in December, will speak on “Conversion to Catholicism” at the Catholic Community Luncheon Wednesday at Barone’s restaurant, 10123 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake.

Lussier, who was ordained at age 58 after graduation from St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, is in residence at the Monastery of the Risen Christ in San Luis Obispo.

The program, which begins with a social half-hour at 11:30 a.m., costs $9, including validated parking. For reservations, call Albert Sulprizio at (213) 656-0955.