Sacred Heart Chapel – not to be confused with Sacred Heart Church on Workman Street – is the original Sacred Heart and first opened its doors at 126 S. Fifth St. to devout Catholics on March 30, 1911.I've been doing a fair amount of research on diocesan policies covering construction and renovation, which lead to questions beyond those I'll put in this post. But I do have one basic question: The Archdiocese of Los Angeles closed this parish in 1959. While closures are an unhappy event and sometimes controversial, we must recognize that real analysis goes into such decisions, and they go to the heart of issues like stewardship of God's resources.And while it flourished at the time, the now privately owned chapel has grown quiet over the years and relatively unknown – a trend that owner Terry Barber wants to turn around.
“We’ve kept a very low profile, and no one knows we’re here,” Barber, 54, said. “When people see it, they are blown away by the beauty. I want to expose this beautiful chapel.”
Influenced by American Gothic Revival style, the 3,400-square-foot facility features arched wooden doors, high wooden beam ceilings, low lighting, granite stone lower walls, original lumber benches and many jewel-toned stained glass windows and religious statues.
Built of stone extracted from the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, the 100-year-old house of worship was first built with $5,500 raised by parishioners through chicken dinner sales, Barber said.
The parish church closed in 1959 when parishioners bought the more well-known Sacred Heart Church. It was then occasionally used for Masses and weddings before falling into disrepair, Barber said.
Barber bought the chapel and original rectory, built in 1927, from the archdiocese in 2003, when he founded St. Joseph Communications, which specializes in Catholic educational materials, audio and video tapes.
. . . After extensively renovating the facility, Sacred Heart became home of the Divine Liturgy of St. Jude Maronite Mission and the Annunciation Melkite Mission, Catholic communities that are of the Syriac and Byzantine traditions, respectively, which hold services in the chapel.
So, if the Archdiocese of Los Angeles did its due diligence in 1959, looking at attendance, demographics, the nature of a changing community, and other issues, why does the North American ordinariate suddenly feel moved to buy it back? Let's recall that, just looking at the reviews on the Holy Martyrs Murrieta Facebook page, the market these OCSP parishes in Southern California seem to serve is not, in fact, ex-Anglicans. It's cradle Catholics who for whatever reason don't like the mass at their diocesan parish. (Or just as likely, think they wouldn't like the mass at their diocesan parish if they ever actually went to mass there.)
In fact, a visitor tells me that Fr Bartus is having some in his parish agitate for the Latin Mass. Now, this is a separate question, with a separate set of facts to bring to the table. The Latin Mass of Los Angeles site shows 11 locations for Latin masses in the Archdiocese now, including one at 1:00 PM every Sunday at the Saint Therese of Lisieux parish in Alhambra, 12.6 miles from the Sacred Heart Chapel. However, this is a real diocesan parish with a range of real Catholic activities, which potential Sacred Heart parishioners may find to be a turnoff.
So, what problem are we trying to solve? The implication seems to be that Fr Bartus isn't finding enough ex-Anglicans to fill his pews, in Irvine, Murrieta, or now Covina, so he's casting his nets farther to bring in the disaffected from other traditions. But in effect, he's assuming there's a market for a Catholic mass that somehow suits all these malcontents right in Covina, a dozen miles from where a Latin mass is already available every Sunday -- but in an area that certainly hasn't been productive for "continuing Anglicans" or high-church Episcopalians, the original target market.
And how many of the disaffected will be willing to pledge big bucks to renovate and maintain that musty termite trap in Covina, rather than pop in now and then to play Ain't It Awful at coffee hour?
But a bigger question is whether there are any adults in Houston who are supervising this process, which I'll go into tomorrow.
