Churchman Honored for Aiding Needy

An 85-year-old religious brother who started soup kitchens, refuges for transients, homes for the retarded, centers for epileptics and retirement homes for priests from Boston to Los Angeles will be honored Sunday in Chicago with the 1985 Lumen Christi Award of the Catholic Church Extension Society.

Brother Mathias Barrett, born on St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland 85 years ago and now nearly blind from glaucoma, was nominated for the award by Archbishop Robert F. Sanchez of Santa Fe, N.M.

“Except perhaps for Mother Teresa of Calcutta,” Sanchez said, “I cannot think of another outstanding churchman in the world who has so totally dedicated his life to assist the poor, the crippled and the forgotten.”

Barrett, who continues to make the rounds of shelters in Albuquerque with the aid of a cane, will receive a $1,000 check. The $25,000 grant that goes to the nominating bishop has been designated by Sanchez to help Barrett start a home for battered women and children in Albuquerque.

The awardee joined the Brothers of St. John the Cross when he was 15. He came to America in the late 1930s after hearing stories of hardships by Irish immigrants to the United States.

The brother was instrumental in opening a number of facilities in Los Angeles. In describing a new house to feed unemployed men “of all races and creeds” in May, 1941, on Washington Boulevard, Barrett apologetically noted that lodging was limited to five rooms. “However, we shall furnish quarters for as many men as we can accommodate,” he said at the time.

The extension society also credited him with a role in the establishment of the St. John of God Nursing Home and Residence, 2035 W. Adams Blvd., and Rancho San Antonio, a home for problem youth in the San Fernando Valley.

He was recalled to Ireland by his order, but his desire to work in U.S. missions was such that he quit and founded a new religious order, the Little Brothers of the Good Shepherd, in 1951.

The first rule of the order is never turn anyone away. “Every poor person, no matter how dirty or repugnant, is welcome. For we never know whether he or she is Jesus in disguise,” Barrett was quoted as saying by the extension society.

A Mass for AIDS victims, friends and their communities will be said at St. Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Santa Monica at 4 p.m. Sunday, a liturgy that organizers say is the first of its kind in this country.

Rector Frederick A. Fenton said the Mass, a public event at which author-priest Malcolm Boyd will be the celebrant, is both a “consciousness-raising act and a call for compassion.” The disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, has primarily struck the homosexual communities.

“At its best, the Church has always been there for everyone,” Fenton said. “To the best of my knowledge, no church in the country has held an AIDS Mass. Hopefully, there will be dozens, hundreds in the future.”

Speakers will include Dr. Neil Schram, who chairs the Los Angeles City and County AIDS Task Force, and Valerie Terrigno, mayor of West Hollywood.