BANGOR – Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno on Monday urged ministers “to weave the fabric of community around people at risk” and to comfort those “touched by evil and bring them home to God” at the Bangor Theological Seminary Convocation.

Reno, who was the first woman attorney general and served eight years under President Clinton, was the keynote speaker at the seminary’s annual three-day conference. Nearly 600 people filled Hammond Street Congregational Church to hear her speak.

She talked about the need for Americans to work to improve health care, education, the criminal justice system, long-term care for the elderly as well as curb domestic violence, substance abuse, homelessness – efforts theologians, clergy and lay activists often refer to as “social justice issues.”

“We need to use our good old-fashioned common sense to bring us all together,” said Reno. “Ministers and churches can create a forum where potentially divisive issues can be discussed in respectful ways.

“Every church should have a conflict resolution program, providing arenas of discussion that take the rhetoric out and put the respect in, so that the issues can be discussed in thoughtful, caring terms,” she said.

In answer to a question, Reno said that in principle she supports the goals behind President Bush’s proposed faith-based initiative that would funnel the delivery of social services through churches. She pointed out that similar programs in the Clinton administration set limits so that separation of church and state would not be breached.

“It is a delicate line to walk, but it is possible,” she said. “It can be done, but we always must be reminding ourselves that one of our greatest freedoms is our freedom of religion.”

Reno refused to comment on Bush’s policy on Iraq or whether the United States should use military force against Saddam Hussein. She said that until the United Nations report on the recent weapons inspections is made public, she would not express an opinion about a possible war with Iraq.

“It was very uplifting,” Bangor resident Eda Morrison, who attends Hammond Street Congregational Church, said of Reno’s speech. “She’s so idealistic, but her ideals mesh with the ideals of this church.”

The Rev. Mark Doty, pastor of the church, said that Reno reminded clergy that they have “a high calling.”

“She told us that pastors should be part of the solution and that more and more we are called upon as people of faith to be in the world,” he said. “She reminded us that we must bring people together. How we do that, that’s the key.”

A Florida native, Reno said that she first visited her uncle, Dr. George Wood of Orono, in the late 1950s when she was a college student and rode a bus from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., to Bangor for Thanksgiving. She told the crowd that she has visited him frequently ever since, and did not mind the bitter-cold winter weather.

“I’d rather be in Maine where people know how to keep warm than in Miami where they do not,” Reno told reporters at a short news conference after her speech. Temperatures in southern Florida dipped into the 40s last week.

Reno said that from Maine she would go to Cornell University, where she will spend two weeks in early February teaching at her alma mater.

She ruled out a return to elective political office after her unsuccessful bid for governor last year in the Florida Democratic primary. She told reporters Monday that she could best serve the American people by “not running for office.”

Reno’s goals include competing in the Kenduskeag canoe race in 2004 after she “perfects her kayaking skills.”

Convocation opened Monday with a morning worship service led by the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor of Demorest, Ga. Named one of the 12 most effective preachers in the country and one of the 10 most effective speakers in the English language by Newsweek, the Episcopal minister drew a record crowd.

Keeping with the Convocation’s theme of “Telling the Story,” Taylor urged ministers to visit less familiar and less comfortable passages in the Bible in order “to tell all” of the story to their congregations.

She will speak again today and give the closing sermon Wednesday. Other Convocation speakers include the Rev. Anthony Pappas, a Baptist minister from Providence, R.I., who is an expert on small churches, and the Rev. Richard Ward, a professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.

For information on the Convocation, visit the seminary Web site at www.bts.edu.