SAN MARCOS — When the Rev. Bruce Orsborn celebrated his first Mass as the new pastor at St. Mark’s Parish in 2016, he reminded those in attendance that St. Mark’s had also been one of his first assignments as a young priest in the 1980s.
He also announced earlier this year that it would be his final assignment: The bishop had promised him he could retire from St. Mark’s in a few years.
However, doctors were unable to contain a brief illness, and Orsborn died Oct. 28. Many of the more than 5,500 families registered at St. Mark’s have been sharing their shock and grief online, along with hundreds of other families who knew him from his previous assignments.
During his decade at St. Mark’s, founded in 1963 and one of the largest parishes in the Diocese of San Diego, he led a series of planning meetings that resulted in the announcement earlier this year that St. Mark’s will be split into two parishes in the years to come. The campus on Sarver Lane, which currently holds a smaller chapel, will be home to the new, still-unnamed parish.
One of five children in the Orsborn family, he was born Sept. 20, 1955, and grew up in La Mesa. He attended Helix High School and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. According to a memory shared online by a childhood friend, Orsborn served as a yearbook photographer at Helix before attending Grossmont College.
In a 1991 Los Angeles Times profile, he said he felt called to ministry while at Grossmont. He attended St. Francis Seminary on the University of San Diego campus, then spent five years at the Vatican working on a graduate degree in theology, with summers devoted to travel, including one spent serving at a leper colony in India.
Previous assignments included serving as pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish in San Diego and St. Jerome’s in Otay Mesa, as well as working with Catholic students at the San Diego State University Newman Center. His first assignment as pastor was at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Chula Vista. Earlier assignments as associate pastor included St. Charles Parish in Imperial Beach, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in East San Diego and his first stint at St. Mark’s.
Orsborn loved leading pilgrimages to various Christian holy sites and had another scheduled when he became ill in late summer.
He also maintained a close friendship with Bishop Moses Chikwe, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Owerri in Nigeria. Chikwe had studied in Southern California as a young man and, for the past few years, stayed at St. Mark’s every October at Orsborn’s invitation.
During Sunday Mass on Nov. 1 at St. Mark’s Mission Church on Sarver Lane, Chikwe shared that on a recent trip to Nigeria, Orsborn noticed the seminary chapel leaking — forcing the young men studying for the priesthood to pray in the rain.
Without being asked, Orsborn returned to San Marcos, made some phone calls and raised enough money for the archdiocese in Nigeria to build a new roof over the chapel. Chikwe said this was typical of his friend, who would simply see a need and work to address it without ever taking credit.
But what many parishioners from his various assignments have been recalling on social media in the days since his death was announced is the playful sense of humor Orsborn brought to his ministry.
On that July morning 10 years ago when he introduced himself as the new pastor of St. Mark’s, he asked the congregants to be seated for parish announcements at the end of the service. When a layperson announced a second collection would be taken up to help retire debt from building a new parish center, Orsborn stood up and said in shock, “Building debt? Building debt? The bishop didn’t tell me anything about building debt!” With the congregation murmuring in confusion, Orsborn sat back down and said with a big smile, “Just kidding!”
Orsborn is survived by a sister, several nieces and nephews, and extended family.
Funeral plans are pending.
