Tujunga : Cardinal, Bishop Mark Parish Anniversary

To mark the 75th anniversary of one of the oldest parishes in the San Fernando Valley area, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles and Bishop Sylvester Ryan of Monterey will concelebrate Mass at 2 p.m. Sunday at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church.

Mahony will take part in several events next week during Pope John Paul II’s visit to the New York area and Baltimore--the sole representative of the archdiocese on the papal tour, church officials said.

Ryan was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes from 1979 to 1986. He was then named rector of St. John’s Seminary College in Camarillo and in 1990 was appointed an auxiliary bishop of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese. Two years later, the Vatican named him bishop of Monterey.

The Tujunga parish began in 1920 with the visit to Los Angeles of an Italian priest and musician, Father Joseph Tonello, who celebrated a Mass in a living room in which the fireplace was turned into an altar. A month later, Tonello was appointed pastor and met with 25 local families in the Verdugo Hills area, a parish spokesman said.

One of the parish committee members who planned for the church’s first building was author and lawyer John Steven McGroarty, who later became a U.S. congressman and California’s poet laureate. The church’s first structure, dedicated shortly before Christmas in 1921, still stands--renovated and remodeled as the Baptist Church of the Foothills.

Father George Brincat is pastor of the present church, at 10321 Tujunga Canyon Blvd. The anniversary observance by the parish will begin today with a 4 p.m. Mass celebrated by Bishop Armando X. Ochoa of Mission Hills, who administers the San Fernando Pastoral Region of the archdiocese.