Msgr. John Rohde; Pastor of St. Vibiana’s

The Rev. Msgr. John Rohde, pastor of the 119-year-old landmark St. Vibiana’s Cathedral and a member of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s cabinet, has died. He was 61.

Rohde, who spent his entire life and career in Southern California, died Monday in the Hospital of the Good Samaritan of a heart attack after treatment for cancer.

In Mahony’s cabinet, Rohde served as director of the secretariat for church ministerial services and ethnic ministries.

When the archdiocese announced earlier this year that historic St. Vibiana’s would be replaced, it was Rohde who reassured parishioners attending Mass: “We are not abandoning you as a parish community.”

Rohde, who was born and grew up in Los Angeles, was educated in Southern California. He attended Holy Name and St. Victor’s schools and graduated from St. Joseph’s School in Hawthorne. He attended Los Angeles College Junior Seminary and St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo.

The priest was ordained April 30, 1959, in St. Vibiana’s by the late Cardinal James Francis McIntyre.

From then until 1973, Rohde moved from associate pastor at St. Philomena Church in Torrance, to St. Camillus de Lellis in Los Angeles, Our Lady of the Rosary in Sun Valley and St. John Baptist de La Salle in Granada Hills.

He next served as a member of a ministry team at Guardian Angels Church in Pacoima and then as administrator of Sacred Heart Church in Pomona. He became associate chaplain at Rancho Los Amigos County Hospital in Downey in 1977 and chaplain in 1979.

Rohde was named pastor of St. Frances X. Cabrini Church in Los Angeles in 1981 and vicar for South-Central Los Angeles in 1984. He earned the title of reverend monsignor that year when Pope John Paul II named him chaplain to his holiness.

Rohde moved to Santa Barbara in 1988 as pastor of San Roque Church. Four years later he was named vicar for the region.

He had served as pastor of St. Vibiana’s for slightly more than a year.

Rohde is survived by two brothers, Michael of San Diego and Raphael of Carlsbad; three sisters, Theresa Jobb and Julie Rohde of San Fernando and Rose Miller of Scottsdale, Ariz.; seven nieces and nephews, one great-nephew and one great-niece.

Memorial donations can be made to St. John’s Seminary, 5012 Seminary Road, Camarillo, Calif. 93012.

A vigil service is scheduled for 7:30 tonight in St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, 114 East 2nd St. in Downtown Los Angeles.

Cardinal Mahony will conduct the funeral Mass at 11 a.m. Friday, also in St. Vibiana’s, with burial to follow at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills.