A Catholic ‘Fort Knox’ Preserves Historic Riches in Myriad Files

Msgr. Francis J. Weber concedes that when he began organizing the archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he may have misjudged the work that lay ahead.

“I figured it would take five years,” the genial, balding priest recalled recently. “That was 23 years ago. We haven’t finished yet.”

The more than two decades of sorting and filing have established Weber, the director of the San Fernando Mission, as the caretaker of a sort of Ft. Knox for students of religious and municipal history. He is the official archivist for the country’s largest Catholic archdiocese.

“This is where historians go for baptismal records dating to 1797,” he said. “You would come here to look up specifics of people who were prominent in the 1800s, or correspondence sent to every (Los Angeles) bishop since 1840.”

What would a local priest be wearing while anointing someone in 1868? How many area Indians died of measles in 1789? Who was the first person baptized at the San Fernando Mission? What was the archbishop doing when the latest earthquake hit?

Thrives on Obscure Facts

For the authorized keeper of the city’s Catholic heritage, questions such as those are routine. Like archivists for local institutions such as the City of Los Angeles, the Pacific Mutual Insurance Co. and the Huntington Library, Weber is a person who thrives on obscure facts.

Indeed, at 52, Weber is a well-known figure in the world of historical research. He has written no fewer than 72 books, with titles ranging from “The Secret Vatican Archives” to “Relevancy of the Roman Collar.” He lectures widely, at institutions ranging from church seminaries to the USC.

He is also an ardent bibliophile, renowned for his collections of miniature books.

Weber’s reputation, however, is based on the material on the second floor of the 4-year-old Chancery Archives building on the grounds of the San Fernando Mission. There, in long rows of gray metal filing cabinets, the archdiocese stores hundreds of thousands of its papers, documents, magazines and books.

The floor is home to documents ranging greatly in age and importance. An 1840 papal declaration creating the dioceses of “Upper and Lower California” is kept in a safe in the back, near an early letter from Father Junipero Serra. The world’s largest collection of mission system post cards is kept on a shelf near the front. Church magazines and newspapers date back to the 1950s, transcripts of sermons to 1917.

There are also a few less formal touches. For no particular reason, Weber says, he hung an inflatable model of the Goodyear blimp at the end of one of the rows of cabinets. Near a desk, a large sign says, “In the Event of Nuclear War, Rules Governing Prayer in This School are Temporarily Suspended.”

Bishops’ Papers

At the heart of the archives are personal and official documents tracing the careers of the bishops and archbishops who have presided over the Los Angeles Diocese. According to Weber, these collections include everything from appointment books to letters dating to the day the diocese was created in 1840.

With a staff consisting of a 68-year-old nun imported from a local convent, a secretary and an 11-year-old, foot-tall dog named Smallpox--”a vicious guard dog,” Weber said--he has spent the better part of his career collecting and arranging these papers. Most of them were found in the Los Angeles headquarters of the archdiocese, but others were retrieved from as far off as Paris or the Vatican library. One bishop’s diary was recovered from a hollow wall in a Barcelona apartment, where it had been hidden from Communists in the 1930s.

Weber said he was “drafted” to organize the papers in 1962, after earning a graduate degree in ecclesiastical history from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Since then, he has divided his time between the documents and the needs of the mission.

As an expert on personal records dating, Weber is privy to more than his share of “professional secrets,” but he talks of them only in the vaguest of terms. He says there are certain files that he might not release without permission from the archdiocese. He also says he has never destroyed a file, nor has he been asked to do so. “We only have one restriction on that sort of thing,” he said. “When a document covers a controversial issue to which the parties are still living, we seal them for a generation.”

Even so, Weber keeps a close watch over the 75 to 100 “qualified researchers” who are permitted to use the archives each year. No one is permitted to browse through the records, and only a few are allowed into the archives at all. Instead, requested papers are brought to a desk installed in Weber’s downstairs office, or photocopied by Weber himself.

In the last several years, Weber says, the archives have drawn a steadily increasing number of visitors, including historians, novelists and sociologists. Movie companies also have called to run checks on costuming and dialogue. Archeologists have traced the progress of epidemics.

Other calls are less productive. Weber says he gets regular requests for the private phone number of Pope John Paul II, and occasional queries from a woman who believes her husband has risen from the dead.

“Those are exceptions, but we get them,” he said. “I keep them in what I call the ‘psycho-ceramic’ file.”

Rewards of Cataloguing

Meanwhile, the cataloguing continues. On a recent visit, when a reporter asked Weber’s assistant, Sister Miriam Cunningham, what she saw in the work, the nun responded by pulling out a 1911 letter received by Bishop Thomas James Conaty, the head of the archdiocese from 1903 to 1915.

Judging from the names and dates, the letter had been written by the son of Gen. Robert E. Lee. He asked that a message be passed to the son of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman’s son, who lived in Santa Barbara, had suffered a nervous breakdown. Lee’s son wanted to express his regret.

“Isn’t that great?” said Sister Cunningham. “If it’s what we think it is, that letter is a real treasure.”

Weber said he is rarely bored by the records that surround him.

“You could say I live in the past,” he joked. “I’ve always found it safer than living in the present.”