Closed Church Could Reopen as Historic Site

Former parishioners of St. Isidore Church may get the opportunity to see their historic mission church reopen as the cornerstone of a new downtown area, Los Alamitos officials said Sunday during a rally to preserve the church.

At a study session today, city officials will discuss the possibility of creating a city center near Katella Avenue and Reagan Street, where the church stands, Mayor Marilynn M. Poe said.

As for saving the church, “We have no idea how,” Poe said Sunday. “We just know that we want St. Isidore to be a part of the downtown plan.”

Poe said that if plans for the area go through, the tiny mission church, which seats about 100, will reopen as a historic site. Initial discussions with Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown have been positive, she added. Msgr. Jaime Soto, the diocesan vicar of Hispanic ministry, said any reopening of the church wouldn’t be for worship.

The small church has been a source of contention between its mostly Latino parishioners and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, which closed the church Sept. 1.

Diocesan leaders maintain that the 77-year-old church is in desperate need of an earthquake retrofit, which will cost an estimated $250,000 to $350,000. In consolidating the congregation of a small church like St. Isidore’s with its larger, better-financed neighbor, St. Hedwig’s, the leaders said, they are simply following a national trend.

But most of St. Isidore’s parishioners have refused to attend St. Hedwig’s weekly bilingual Mass and have continued praying the rosary on St. Isidore’s patio every Sunday morning.

A nonprofit group formed by parishioners called the Comite de Amor, or Committee of Love, has met weekly since May in an effort to save the church. On Oct. 7, members of the group were told by Brown that the church would remain closed.

Since then, the group’s cause has galvanized Latinos, preservationists and civil rights activists. Sunday’s rally brought out more than 200 people, including city council members from Seal Beach and Cypress and Latino activist Mario Obledo, a former recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and co-founder of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) said after the rally that he will join the effort to keep the church open.

“We’ve had too many experiences with terminating or demolishing a part of our history only to find out years later there is a desire to reconnect with it,” he said.