Chapter 27
St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic
Church
Monsignor Peter D. Nugent, pastor for nine years of St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Baldwin Park, played the hero in a melodramatic skit staged by a church-based community organization.1
The priest ripped the blindfolds off the Environmental Protection Agency's "watchdogs" so they could see and chase away the villains contaminating the ground water in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley.
Nugent plays a similar role in real life. His simple but strong biblical sermons, which he delivers without notes, relate to pressing social problems.
At St. John the Baptist, one of the largest parishes in the sprawling three-county Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he helped the church's 7,000-plus families, the vast majority of whom are Latinos and Filipinos, see opportunities to improve their lives and community.
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"A lot of people here are ready to respond and develop and get into things if you give them half a chance," Nugent says. "My prime goal is leadership development."2
That goal is consonant with the vision of a leading Catholic Bishop, Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who spoke recently on "Toward the Year 2000: Priests and the Laity." In the "increasing need for collaborative ministry," Wuerl said, "priesthood and lay ministry work hand in hand . . . Increasingly, as more and more people recognize their own calling and respond to it, the tasks of the priest as leader of the faith community will more and more center on his ability to coordinate, oversee, and enable all of the members . . . to participate in the building up of the church."
Wuerl went on to describe the priest of the next millennium as one whose work is "less 'hands on' and more supervisory and empowering," allowing him to become "less the direct, omnipresent, sole minister in the church," and more able "to lead or shepherd the faithful."3
Nugent's successful service to his burgeoning flock is that kind of ministry. Church analysts say other priests in the 56-million-member U.S. Catholic Church will need to copy his style if the faith is to continue its growth and relevance through the 1990s and beyond.
Changing Population, Shifting Focus
Father Gene Hemrick, research director for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has predicted that by 2001 "immigration is going to turn the church upside down."4 In Baldwin Park, it already has.
During the time Nugent — who is now in his mid-fifties and serves another Southern California parish — was in charge at St. John the Baptist, nothing influenced his focus more dramatically than Baldwin Park's shifting population. Once a semi-agricultural small town, it's now a rapidly growing semi-urban area with pockets of deep poverty and crime, gangs and drug problems.
Baldwin Park's population of 63,000 is about 77 percent Latino, 15 percent Filipino, 8 percent Anglo, and a smattering of others. The average annual income for individuals in 1989-90 was $16,000.
The ethnic diversity, generally low family incomes, and attendant
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social problems confound traditional patterns of parish leadership and worship.
"Incorporating the various ethnic groups into one parish is a challenging job," said St. John's music director, Tom Ratto. "We have a tremendous amount of turnover. It's a fast-moving place; it jumps."
St. John the Baptist parish is not untypical. Many in Southern California have experienced growth and a rapidly changing population in the past few years. In fact, virtually every parish west and southwest of downtown Los Angeles is experiencing what archdiocese communications director Bill Rivera calls "the Hispanic wave."
According to the 1990 census, Los Angeles County residents included 3.3 million Latinos, or 38 percent of the total population — up from 7 percent in 1950. Since 1980, 1.3 million persons of Spanish / Hispanic origin have been added to the county's population.5
St. John is a premier pioneer parish, according to Auxiliary Bishop Juan Arzube, who oversees parishes in the San Gabriel Valley. The "contemporary mentality" of its priests, its innovative programs, and Nugent's ability to "get things done" in the community combined to make St. John an attractive role model, Arzube said.
The parish is a prime example of what Jane Redmont, an authority on Catholic parish and campus ministries, says a congregation needs to do to remain vital: smoothly blend "prayer and social concern, spiritual nurture and a strong worship life, a commitment to religious education for adults and children, and a laity increasingly interested in making the connection between their religious faith and their daily lives."6
St. John's pastoral staff is certainly cosmopolitan: Nugent, a French Canadian, learned to speak Spanish when he was a student at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, California. Associate Pastor Nick Ricalde is Filipino, and associate Guillermo Rodriguez is Salvadoran. An Italian priest learning to speak English joined the staff for the summer of 1989, and the year's seminary intern was Irish-German.
The swirling mix of languages and cultures is evident in everything from people to programs to the color of paint used in decorating.
Four of eight weekend Masses are said in Spanish. On a recent
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Sunday, the morning Spanish Mass included music from a choir, organ, guitars, and an accordion. At the afternoon Mass, a choir sang — first in Filipino and then in English — "You'll Never Walk Alone."
Elizabeth Tapia, who grew up in the parish and now teaches English as a second language at the church, remembers when the 800-seat sanctuary had lots of marble and crucifixes. During extensive remodeling, in 1984, the interior was done over in gold and coral pink.
"Many here have become acculturated," said Tapia, adding that St. John "really wants to serve all the needs of the people — all the cultures and perspectives."
That's an ingredient that makes effective contemporary parishes "work," according to The Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life. The in-depth, decade-long research project looks at the combined impact of demographic change and the Second Vatican Council on local Catholic communities.
The most important components in building parish community, concluded David Leege, director of the study, are "the opportunity to serve in a wide variety of ministries, interest groups and activities; the accessibility and affirmation of pastors; and a participatory liturgy."
Also drawing a congregation together are sermons that relate to people's everyday lives, a Eucharistic celebration that recognizes those assembled as a "body of Christ" gathered around the Body of Christ, and hymns and responses.
Parishes that develop a strong sense of community also act as a "living catechesis" (religious instruction program), Leege said, "You can talk a lot about different programs to instruct people, but the strongest teacher is the way the parish goes about its business. It's through a sense of community that Catholics learn who they are and what they ought to do."7
Some changes have not been easy for the dwindling remnant of Anglos who originally formed St. John Parish and built the church and its school. Ruth Stein, who has been attending St. John since it was established in 1946, feels a little left out.
"We're the minority now," she sighed. "But when I go to church I do to pray to God, not to notice who's there. Things are going to have to change [more] and we're just going to go along with it."
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Nugent, who often wears a Mexican-style shirt called a guayabera, was thirteen when his family moved to East Los Angeles from Canada. Ordained in 1962, he holds a master's degree in music from the University of Southern California, and he taught music at St. John's Seminary for fourteen years. After serving for two years as associate pastor at St. Pius X Parish in nearby Santa Fe Springs, he came to St. John the Baptist in 1981.
The soft-spoken, energetic Nugent belongs to a health club and likes music, reading, skiing, hiking, and the beach. He draws the standard salary for monsignors: $450 a month plus a car, meals, and lodging at the church rectory.
Moving Out for the Millennium
It's time, he says, for parishes to move into new strategies for the next century. "We've been a service church — baptisms, worship, weddings, education," he declared, noting that there had been 153 marriages, 412 baptisms, and 200 to 300 confirmations at St. John during the previous year. About 1,000 children and young adults were enrolled in the church's catechism program. "But I see the kids as they are growing up and they don't have the allegiances we had," he continued. "They are very free. Some don't necessarily believe [in the faith]. And that's not just the 'black sheep.' It's a way of growing up in modern America. Young adults, too. The church has to reach out."
Nugent's efforts to reach out included six-week home Bible study and prayer meetings that involved up to 500 people. And he held "friendly neighborhood encounters": home rosaries and occasional home Masses. "Our parish is the neighborhood; whoever is here is us," he said, spreading his hands. "That's in our tradition."
A growing tradition at St. John is a major youth emphasis sparked by full-time youth minister Lucy Boutte. She specializes in training high school young people to lead their own weekend retreats.
"These are often turning points. They encounter themselves, their parents, pain, each other, God, and Jesus," said Boutte, a former insurance underwriter. Estrangement between teens and their parents is the most frequent obstacle, so parents join in on the final night of the retreat, bringing "love letters" they have just written to
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their children. The young people respond by writing their parents. A family "reconciliation service" concludes the evening as the parents lay hands on their children in prayer.
"If we don't address the conflicts within families, they get passed on for generations and we get more broken relationships," Boutte explained.
Laura Garcia, sixteen, one of Boutte's twenty-five team leaders, said the retreats had helped her to be "more understanding and patient with people," but "some [young people] don't get involved because of peer pressure."
St. John tries to reach children early. Its school serves some 500 pupils from first through eighth grades. Students score an average of two-and-one-half to three years above the national achievement norms, according to Sister Assumpta Martinez, a teacher and principal at St. John's for sixteen years. About 95 percent go on to Catholic high schools and half to college, she said proudly.
The monthly tuition at St. John's school is a bargain: $92 per student for working parents, and $75 for non-working parents, who are expected to help with school supervision. Proceeds from weekly parish bingo games help to keep fees low.
Although most children speak Spanish, only English is used at the school, in line with Sister Assumpta's conviction that bilingual classes hinder education in the long run.
"We have the most outstanding, caring, family environment here," said the sister, a member of the order of the Religious of the Love of God. The school has no problems with drugs, alcohol, or tobacco, she added, crediting good discipline: "We cherish freedom . . . based on responsibility."
Counseling, Social Service, and Guidance
Sister Joan Keltus, who supervises Christian social service programs at St. John, sees another side of the parish and community. There is counseling for troubled marriages, assistance for battered women, groceries given to 1,000 families each month through an ecumenical food center, and guidance for immigrants navigating a maze of red tape and paperwork to obtain food stamps, medical benefits, and employment. And before the registration deadline,
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Sister Joan helped 5,000 area families sign up for the immigration amnesty program.
"There's a lot of poverty and unemployment in this area," says the nun, a member of the Sisters of Social Service. She sees irony in the fact that she's pledged to poverty but her monthly stipend of $500 plus a car and apartment total more than what many in the parish make — half earn only the minimum wage of $4.25 an hour.
"Rents here are outrageous," hugged Sister Joan, pointing to an ill-kept housing development down the block where two or more families often share two-bedroom units at $560 a month.
She calls her ministry no more than "Band-Aiding — meeting immediate needs." And, she says, as the government cuts back on social services and counseling, "the church has to do more and more of this."
David Leege, overseer of the Notre Dame parish study, found that parish-connected Catholics want even more of these kinds of services from their local parishes: drug and alcohol counseling, marital help, programs for the separated and divorced, adult religious education, interfaith experiences, and social action projects.8
The staff of St. John's is indeed working to give the people a stronger voice in their own destinies. For example, Margarita Vargas, a leader in the powerful interdenominationally based East Valleys Organization, targeted 4,748 Baldwin Park residents eligible to vote. She got 2,100 of them registered and to the polls. And substantial portions of St. John's $700,000 annual budget help fund organizations like the interfaith food center and the East Valleys Organization.
The Rev. Donn Crail, pastor of Baldwin Park Presbyterian Church, had this to say about his neighboring parish: "St. John will continue to be a significant presence in the future . . . particularly for Hispanics, giving them empowerment and self-esteem. It does a very good job of reaching the 'whole person.' "
And the Notre Dame study offers this lesson from history for the millennial road ahead:
The moment the [Second Vatican] Council defined the church as the "People of God," a change in thinking took place, and a change in acting as well; the concept of shared responsibility entered into church life, and with it came shared decision-making.
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These elements have been developing for . . . [more than] 20 years and in ways most likely not envisioned by the bishops at the council. No one can predict the future, but release a powerful agent for change in a society undergoing rapid transformation, and the future is unlikely to imitate the past.9
If I were betting on the type of ministry to blaze the trail through the nineties and prepare the way for Jesus Christ in the millennium, I'd choose that of St. John the Baptist.
