Priest Outlasts His Critics, Steps Down After 32 Years

In 1954, only a few months after Father Peter O’Sullivan was sent to the then remote, rural suburb of Granada Hills to establish a parish, a delegation of Catholics marched into the late Cardinal James Francis McIntyre’s office and asked that he oust the crusty, Irish-born priest.

“They reported that I was hard to get along with,” said O’Sullivan, now 76 and a monsignor since 1978. “They wanted to do things their own way. There were a lot of quarterbacks then.”

But the band of dissidents got no audience with McIntyre, and O’Sullivan remained at the church, St. John Baptist de la Salle, for the next 32 years, 7 months.

He guided the church as it grew from about 700 worshipers who went to Mass at the San Fernando Mission to a parish of 2,500 families that now attend services in a large, elegant church building at the corner of Chatsworth Street and Hayvenhurst Avenue.

O’Sullivan retired from the priesthood this week after a career of more than 50 years. Thousands of church members, past and present, honored him last Sunday with a Mass of Thanksgiving followed by a party in the parish hall. Among guests were Councilman Hal Bernson and former Councilman Bob Wilkinson, both of whom O’Sullivan counts as friends.

No Sidewalks on Chatsworth

There were no sidewalks on Chatsworth Street on March 2, 1954, when O’Sullivan was sent to Granada Hills to establish the church. But Wilkinson convinced the city to help the church pay for them, O’Sullivan said.

“Chatsworth was little more than a country lane,” he said. “This was a rural area. There were ranches all over--and orange groves. It was peaceful and beautiful.”

The 10 acres on which the church, its school, rectory, convent and parish hall now stand was a horse ranch, he said.

“Masses were held at the old Mission church for a year,” O’Sullivan said. “I bought a tract house nearby to hold baptisms and counseling sessions in.”

A lot of tract houses were being built in the area in the 1950s. The congregation at St. John Baptist de la Salle was growing so fast that, by the time the first church building opened on Thanksgiving Day, 1954, O’Sullivan was already making plans to build a larger one.

In those days, many celebrities lived in the ranches along Chatsworth and Devonshire streets and O’Sullivan took advantage of that fact. Ernest Borgnine, Craig Stevens, Alexis Smith and Lawrence Welk appeared at early church fund-raising events.

‘Growing Pains’ Continue

The present church, which cost $800,000, opened in 1963. But the larger church building did not solve the parish’s “growing pains,” O’Sullivan said.

After the Korean War, many former military families settled in Granada Hills and the church was hard-pressed to serve the expanded population, O’Sullivan said. Later, in 1963, the parish of St. Euphrasia Church, now at 11766 Shoshone St., was established to serve part of O’Sullivan’s growing congregation. A few years later, Our Lady of Lourdes Church opened at 9800 Canby Ave. to serve a section of Northridge that originally had been a part of the St. John Baptist de la Salle parish.

Along with the population explosion have come changes in society and in the church itself, O’Sullivan observed.

“People used to be more family conscious, more stable,” he said. “There was no drug culture. There was less crime.”

“In my day, all Irish families liked to have a priest in the family,” he said. “It was a status symbol at that time--kind of like money, sex and drugs are today.”

O’Sullivan confronted crime head-on himself in 1976, when he disarmed a 20-year-old robber who broke into the rectory, held a knife to the priest’s throat and demanded money. “I just got mad and grabbed him,” he said.

Held Suspect for Police

The then 66-year-old O’Sullivan held the would-be thief until police arrived. He later was honored by the Los Angeles City Council because of his actions.

O’Sullivan, a tall man with robust looks, considers himself a traditionalist within the Roman Catholic Church. He said Vatican II, which liberalized many church policies, “opened up many windows--some say too many.”

O’Sullivan said that Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, did “a good thing” earlier this year when he sent questionnaires to parishioners. For the first time, he said, lay members are being given a voice in establishing church priorities.

O’Sullivan will move to an apartment on the grounds of the Granada Hills church when his replacement, Father Michael Slattery, now pastor at St. Euphrasia, arrives Oct. 15. O’Sullivan said he will remain active in church activities and the community.

“I don’t want to be forgotten,” he said.