Ceremony Launches Restoration of Church

It could have been a church fiesta deep in rural Mexico or Central America, complete with a brass band, pinatas, and a posada or Christmas procession, led by a boy and girl in traditional Indian dress.

But this pageant unfolded on the bustling corner of Pico and Mariposa, west of downtown Los Angeles. The sponsoring church was St. Thomas the Apostle, its windows shuttered and its stucco scorched from an arson fire in June 1999.

Several hundred worshipers and well-wishers turned out on a sun-splashed Saturday afternoon as Cardinal Roger M. Mahony presided over a dedication to begin restoration of the historic church. It serves a community made up mostly of immigrants from Mexico and Central America and their children.

Emotions ran high as the cardinal, resplendent in his pointed cap, or mitre, and cream-colored vestments, marched near the head of the posada and later addressed the gathering from the church steps. Tears came to some in the crowd.

“Viva nuestra iglesia! Long live our church!” Concepcion Alfaro declared as the cardinal used a pine branch to sprinkle holy water on the cornerstone, which was laid in 1903. “Our church may be small,” Alfaro said, “but it is a home for all of our pueblo.”

The restoration will almost double seating at the church, providing places for 940 worshipers. The work will take a year and cost $2.5 million, funded by the archdiocese, insurance and donations said the pastor, Father Jarlath “Jay” Cunnane, ruddy-faced and proud.

“Yes, our people are poor, and they’re immigrants, but they have great faith,” said Cunnane, a native of the west of Ireland, a region that has also sent generations of immigrants to the United States.

A special House of Worship Arson Task Force is investigating this and other fires, said Capt. Steve Ruda, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman.

In the 18 months since the blaze, services have been held at the church parking lot, at a warehouse and at nearby Loyola High School. The church’s loss, and the sense that it is coming back, was palpable on this stretch of Pico bedecked with multihued streamers and balloons.

“I have come to this church since I arrived in this country in 1970, and I have missed it so,” said Guillermina Hernandez, a mother of three from Mexico’s Oaxaca state. “We were all crying when it burned.”

The church and its elementary school are pillars of the neighborhood, said the Very Rev. Father John S. Bakas, dean of St. Sophia Cathedral, a Greek Orthodox church a block away.

During the ceremony, well-wishers came to the podium and prayed for blessings in various languages, including English, Spanish, Korean and several Indian tongues.

Parishioner Abram Vasquez, a garment factory worker, offered a prayer in Quiche, one of the Mayan languages of Guatemala. He asked for a special blessing for all of his brethren who lack immigration papers.