Al Antczak, 67, retired this week from...

Al Antczak, 67, retired this week from the Tidings, the official newspaper of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese, after 42 years, including 16 as editor.

The self-effacing Catholic layman had requested retirement last summer but only announced his departure in last week’s issue.

The Tidings hit a peak paid circulation of 125,000 in the mid-1960s when Catholic attendance at Mass and the numbers of priests and nuns were also at their highest levels.

Circulation is about 40,000, said Bill Rivera, the archdiocesan public affairs director serving temporarily as editor. “The Tidings has been running at an annual deficit of nearly $70,000, but that has always been more than covered by interest from investments. The paper has a lot of money,” Rivera said.

Antczak leaves as archdiocesan officials are exploring whether to revamp the newspaper in hopes of reaching every Catholic home in the archdiocese, Rivera said.

Officials would like to distribute the weekly free to an estimated 1 million households in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. They would like to attract more advertising with five regional editions corresponding to the archdiocese’s five pastoral regions.

In addition, officials are also studying the feasibility of a Spanish-language newspaper with a completely different staff and content, Rivera said.

During this decade, the Tidings has been printing a column in Spanish and translations of key articles or statements in recognition of the growing number of Latino parishioners among the estimated 3.4 million Catholics in the archdiocese,

Archbishop Roger M. Mahony will host a retirement dinner for Antczak on Oct. 15 at Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary in Los Angeles.

PEOPLE

The Rev. Philip Zwerling, after 11 years as senior minister of Los Angeles’ First Unitarian Church, says he has decided to leave in late December to accept the pulpit at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Tucson. A Harvard Divinity School graduate who kept alive the radical-edge tradition at First Unitarian, Zwerling was arrested five times during his tenure for civil disobedience during protests against arms manufacturers and U.S. Central American policies. In 1983, he led the congregation to declare itself as the first “sanctuary church” in Southern California for Central American refugees. Zwerling said he felt the need for a new challenges in his ministry at what will be “a younger and larger church” in Tucson.

CONFERENCES

An all-day clergy liability workshop will be held next Saturday at Biola University in La Mirada by attorney Dennis R. Kasper. Legal issues in church counseling, confidentiality, insurance and recent court cases are among topics to be addressed, according to the sponsoring Talbot School of Theology at Biola and its alumni association. Tuition is $40 for the workshop, which runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Perspectives on peace by Buddhists, Quakers and other religious adherents will be discussed at a three-day conference starting at 3 p.m. Friday at Chapman College in Orange. The program was organized by the United Ministries in Education, an ecumenical organization of campus ministers. After a broad comparison on Sunday morning of peace traditions in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, a short interfaith service at 11:30 a.m. will conclude the conference. Advance registration ($30) was urged by the college’s peace and justice program office.

ACTION

Churchgoers at the Redondo Beach Church of Religious Science will be able to donate blood as well as money Sunday. The 2,000-member church, pastored by the Rev. Frank Richelieu, will host a blood drive from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The drive is administered by the American Red Cross and open to the public.