Noise in Vernon Church Is Sign of Faith : Religion: Holy Angels marks its first anniversary as a center of worship for the deaf and hearing impaired. Its services are not the traditional kind.

A visitor’s first impression of Holy Angels Church for the Deaf in Vernon is how loud it is.

Babies bawl at the top of their lungs.

Their older brothers and sisters talk freely to one another.

“The parents don’t hear them to control them,” Debra Carey, a sign language interpreter, explained after 11 a.m. Mass Sunday.

Today marks the first anniversary of Holy Angels, which is the only Catholic church in the Los Angeles Archdiocese offering special services for the deaf and hearing impaired.

Fathers Brian Doran and Tom Schweitzer, themselves hearing impaired, conduct all services, weddings and funerals in sign language. Even the Catholic confessions, traditionally heard in anonymity as a priest sits behind a curtain, are conducted in face-to-face sign language.

Schweitzer, 34, said his deaf parishioners express no embarrassment at publicly professing their sins.

“Deaf people are used to face-to-face communication,” Schweitzer said Sunday as Mass was about to begin.

According to church deacon James Dillon, Holy Angels was created last year in response to a request by the local deaf community that the Los Angeles Archdiocese establish a church specifically for the deaf and hearing impaired. Church officials say there are as many as 20,000 deaf and hearing-impaired people in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which covers Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Although many of the deaf parishioners are able to read lips, they say it is difficult--and sometimes impossible--to do so in large churches.

“I used to feel like I was missing something in Mass,” David Rose, 28, of Santa Monica, said in sign language through an interpreter after services at Holy Angels. “Now, I understand more and more.”

Another of the church faithful, Gladys Study, 77, of Venice, said that she, too, was frustrated at sitting through Catholic services at other churches.

“I would hear them (the priests), but I wouldn’t understand what they were saying,” said Study, who suffers from impaired hearing and can hear only the loudest noises through a hearing aid.

The Catholic Archdiocese selected as the home of its new deaf church the former Santa Marta Church, a 75-year-old stone chapel on Santa Fe Avenue in Vernon. It was closed almost a decade ago because of a dwindling congregation, Dillon said.

The church required nearly $300,000 in renovations, having been damaged in the 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the Whittier area two years ago, Dillon said. Included in the renovation was repainting of the altar from white to purple. Dillon explained that the darker background color was needed to make it easier for the deaf parishioners to see a father’s hand movements.

The Dec. 18, 1988, opening of Holy Angels Church drew parishioners from as far as Hemet, San Diego and Orange. About 100 people began attending services there on a regular basis. Today, church officials estimate the congregation at 150 and growing.

Father Doran, however, does not want the church to outgrow its current small headquarters.

“We don’t want it to get so big that people can’t see,” said Doran, 47, who was the first deaf Catholic priest ordained in the United States.

Sunday’s 11 a.m. congregation filled the 125-seat church to overflowing. Fathers Doran and Schweitzer greeted the faithful with sign language. A fluttering of moving hands and fingers ensued as the congregation returned the greeting.

Then, traditional Mass ensued in a most non-traditional manner.

In contrast to the staid atmosphere that typically marks a Catholic Mass, this service resembled a television talk show.

The fathers used candy, toys and balloons to emphasize points of a sermon. Several deaf parishioners jokingly covered their ears when a blue balloon was popped.

Parishioners repeatedly chimed in their input. For example, Michael Bennett, 35, of West Covina, frantically waved for attention and, when recognized, said in sign language: “I offer a prayer for the people who are not here because they are sick.”

The non-traditional church atmosphere is necessary, Dillon later explained, because deaf people communicate in an animated manner.

Shaking hands with departing parishioners, Schweitzer said Holy Angels represents more to the deaf than a place for worship.

“The goal of this church,” he said, “is really to be a home for the deaf people--a place where they belong.”