Pastor Takes Dual Role as Spiritual Leader, Activist : Change: Baldwin Park parish reflects efforts to keep church growing and relevant, improving lives and community.

Msgr. Peter D. Nugent, pastor of St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Baldwin Park, recently played the hero role in a melodramatic skit staged by a church-based community organization.

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 the San Gabriel Valley.

Nugent plays a similar role in real life as spiritual leader of one of the largest parishes in the sprawling three-county Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles: He helps St. John’s 7,000 families, the vast majority of whom are Latinos and Filipinos, see opportunities to improve their lives and community.

“A lot of people here are ready to respond and develop and get into things . . . if you give them half a chance,” Nugent said during an interview. “My prime goal is leadership development.”

During the eight years the slightly built, 53-year-old priest has been in charge at St. John the Baptist, nothing has 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, gang and drug problems.

Nugent’s successful service to his burgeoning and variegated flock is an example that church analysts say other pastors in the 55-million-member U.S. Roman Catholic Church could copy if the faith is to continue its growth and relevance.

Within the next 10 years, “immigration is going to turn the church upside down,” predicted Father Gene Hemrick, research director for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

While many parishes will tend to bog down in internal problems, “the way we respond to that bigger picture is the way we’re going to go,” Hemrick said, adding that present estimates of the U.S. Latino Catholic population are in the 20-million range, and that by 1995, half of all U.S. Catholics will be Latinos.

Baldwin Park’s population of 63,000 is about 77% Latino, 15% Filipino, 8% Anglo, and a smattering of other racial backgrounds. The average annual income for individuals is about $16,000.

The ethnic diversity, generally low family incomes and attendant social problems confound traditional patterns of parish leadership as well as 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 only one of many in Southern California, of course, to experience growth and a rapidly changing population in the past few years. For example, virtually every parish west and southwest of downtown Los Angeles is experiencing what archdiocese communications director Bill Rivera calls “the Hispanic wave.”

But St. John is a premier pioneer, 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 combine to make St. John an attractive role model, Arzube said.

The pastoral staff is indeed cosmopolitan: Nugent, a French Canadian, learned to speak Spanish when he was a classmate of Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. Associate Pastor Nick Ricalde is Filipino, and associate Guillermo Rodriguez is Salvadoran. The swirling mix of languages and cultures is evident in everything at St. John from people to programs to paint.

Three of the eight weekend Masses are said in Spanish; a fourth will be added soon. On a recent Sunday, the 11 a.m. Spanish Mass included music from a choir, organ, guitars and an accordion. At the 1 p.m. Mass, a choir sang in Filipino and in English.

Elizabeth Tapia, 27, 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.”

Some changes have not been easy for the dwindling remnant of Anglos who originally formed the parish and built the church and its school.

Ruth Stein, who has been coming to St. John ever since the parish was established in 1946, feels a little left out.

“We’re the minority now,” she sighed. “But when I go to church I go 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.”

Nugent, who often wears a Mexican-style shirt called a guayabera , was 13 when his family moved to East Los Angeles from Canada. Ordained a priest in 1962, he holds a master’s degree in music from USC, and he taught music at St. John’s Seminary for 14 years. After serving for two years as associate pastor at St. Pius X Parish in 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 rectory adjoining the church.

It’s time, he said, for the parish to move into new strategies for the 1990s.

“We’ve been a service church--baptisms, worship, weddings, education,” he declared, noting that there had been 153 marriages, 412 baptisms and between 200 and 300 confirmations during the past year. About 1,000 children and young adults are currently enrolled in the church’s catechism (religious instruction) 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 have included involving up to 500 people in six-week home Bible study and prayer meetings. And he plans more “friendly encounters” with neighbors: home rosaries and occasional home Masses.

“Our parish is the neighborhood; whoever is here is us,” he said, spreading his hands in an open gesture. “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 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.

St. John tries to reach children early: Its school serves some 500 pupils from first through eighth grades. Students score an average of 2 1/2 to three years above the national achievement norms, according to Sister Assumpta Martinez, a teacher and principal at St. John’s for 16 years. About 95% go on to Catholic high schools and half to college, she said proudly.

The monthly tuition at St. John’s School is probably the lowest of any private school in the San Gabriel Valley: $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 keep fees down, Nugent said.

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.

Adding that the school has no problems with drugs, alcohol or tobacco, Sister Assumpta credits good discipline: “We cherish freedom . . . based on responsibility.”

But 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 for 1,000 families given each month through an ecumenical food center, and guidance for immigrants navigating a maze of red tape and paper work in order to obtain food stamps, medical benefits and employment. And before the registration deadline, 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,” huffed 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, with the government cutting back on social services and counseling, “the church has to do more and more of this.”

Nugent and his staff are working, however, to give the people a stronger voice in their own destinies. For example, St. John member Margarita Vargas, a leader in the powerful church-based East Valleys Organization, targeted 4,748 residents eligible to vote last November. She got 2,100 of them registered and to the polls.

Nugent relates his simple but strong biblical sermons, which he delivers without notes, to pressing social problems. And substantial portions of St. John’s $671,000 annual budget help fund organizations like the interfaith food center and the EVO.

The Rev. Donn Crail, pastor of Baldwin Park Presbyterian Church, says this about his neighboring cleric: “I’m very impressed with Peter Nugent’s openness and willingness to be involved with others. 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.’ ”