L.A. Priest Who Led Way in AIDS Ministry Retires

With wit and incredible strength, the Rev. Carroll Barbour bore the burden of AIDS during the 1980s like few other priests in Los Angeles, sometimes averaging three or four funerals a week and visits to hundreds of sick parishioners every month.

For 15 years, Barbour carried St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church through God’s gifts and horrors, and opened wide his parish doors to those dying of the disease. In his own soul, there was pain--personal pain from losing his oldest son, John, to AIDS. Under Barbour, the Gothic church in West Hollywood became a refuge for those shunned from other denominations, a sanctuary for the sick and dying.

“I came here and all of those boys became my sons,” Barbour said Sunday after he celebrated his last Mass in an emotional service attended by about 500 people.

This ministry “was an outlet for the grief,” Barbour said. “And I think it healed me.”

When the soloist raised her operatic voice at Sunday’s service in an achingly beautiful rendition of “O, My Son,” it tore at Barbour’s heart. But he kept cool. It was only when Barbour said his final blessing at the end of the Mass that he broke down in tears. After 40 years in the church, Barbour, at 69, was retiring from the priesthood.

“Those eyes, those hands, those children that you see Sunday after Sunday. That got me. But there is a whole new generation, and we step aside for them. I just hope the ambience never leaves here and it remains an oasis in this desert land,” he said.

Carolyn Olman, who has been a member of the church for 45 years, said she will miss Barbour, but that the time had come for him to rest.

“He has given us so much. He’s been so strong for so many people, especially when his son passed, it was so painful. But he showed us strength through his example,” Olman said. “He opened the doors of this church to everyone: married, divorced, gay, straight, big families, those with no families. He brought us a personal sense of Christ.”

The fight over what recognition to extend to gay and lesbian Episcopalians is currently the most contentious issue facing the denomination. Last week, the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops rejected a proposal that the denomination create official rites for blessing unions between same-sex couples in committed relationships.

After more than three hours of debate, prelates gathered for the church’s general convention in Denver warned that if the proposal were to pass, it could threaten the unity of the 2.4 million-member denomination. As rector of St. Thomas, Barbour has been a quiet crusader in that fight.

During Sunday’s service, Barbour’s second son, the Rev. Hugh Barbour, delivered the homily, opening with a Bible verse from the Book of Amos.

“I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet,” the young Barbour said, as the congregation roared with laughter.

Hugh Barbour, who is a Roman Catholic priest, continued his sermon speaking on the meaning of true religion. He said religion does not give us comfort in suffering, but gives us challenge to move forward.

“I know all this from a prophet, my own father,” changing his earlier assessment.

Carroll Barbour was born and raised in Dunn, N.C. He came to California in the 1950s to join the Navy and was stationed in San Diego. He had known since childhood that he wanted to be a priest, Barbour said, but he fought the calling fiercely for years.

It was only after he went on a retreat at Mt. Calvary monastery in Santa Barbara that he knew his destiny. Though he considered becoming a monk, he had fallen in love with his childhood sweetheart, Maryann Westbrook, and decided to become an Episcopal priest. The couple married in 1953 and had three sons: John who died in 1990 at 32; Hugh, 40; and Philip, 33.

“I had some rather profound religious experiences, but you don’t talk about them in public because people think you’re crazy,” Barbour said. “But once I surrendered to God, everything fell into place.”

Barbour was ordained a priest in 1960. In the heat of the civil rights struggle in 1965, Barbour went to lead a church in Georgia. It was a time when the Ku Klux Klan walked without shame and dressed up little children in white robes and hoods, Barbour said. When a group of black college students asked if they could attend his church, Barbour welcomed them as Christians, not knowing the consequences. Several Klansmen approached him outside his church.

“They hit me and beat me to a pulp, then shoved me under a car. But I had to show them they couldn’t silence me. So the next day, I drank three jiggers of bourbon and went to church like nothing happened. After that, it got harder for me.”

Soon afterward, Barbour was transferred to Kansas. He eventually came back to Los Angeles, where he had graudated from Occidental College after being discharged from the Navy.

But somewhere between Georgia and Kansas, something happened. Barbour had started drinking chronically, and by 1970, he was an alcoholic.

“By the time, I got back here to Los Angeles, I was a mess,” Barbour said. “I took my last drink on Aug. 13, 1974, and after that, I was a better priest.”

Michael Ensign, a member of St. Thomas for the past five years, said Barbour’s personal struggles are what gives him such warmth and compassion.

“He has that ‘been-there, done-that’ attitude. He never acts like he’s holier than us. He’ll stand up there and talk about his alcoholism and say ‘I am the worst sinner here,’ ” Ensign said.

When he arrived at St. Thomas in 1985, Barbour had no idea what awaited him. The AIDS crisis was heightening and fear had overtaken the church and community.

“When I got there, it was just 40 little gray heads, people that were scared to death of the gay community. AIDS was just surfacing and they were very afraid. I came with an open-door policy saying anybody could come to my church. That first year was hell.”

A group opposed to his new policy allowing gays to join the church tried to have Barbour removed as rector. Eventually the bishop of the Los Angeles Diocese intervened and decided Barbour should stay.

Soon, the congregation grew to about 400 as it accepted Jews, Mormons, Roman Catholics and Baptists, many of whom had felt rejected by their own faiths. The church’s confirmation classes filled with people who wanted to convert to Episcopalian and were among the largest such class in the Los Angeles diocese.

Barbour’s legacy will remain at St. Thomas through an AIDS chapel he dedicated to the memory of Blessed Damien of Molokai, who ministered to lepers in Hawaii. Barbour also began the tradition of commemorating the dead by burying their ashes in plaques along the church walls.

“He brought with him a degree of controversy, controversy necessary to shake the leaves and bring in some fresh air,” said church member Ron Hartwig.

While ministering to the sick of his church, Barbour was working through his own grief. His wife died of an aneurysm in 1986, and shortly after that his son was diagnosed with AIDS. Through it all, Barbour said, he never grew angry with God, only impatient.

Barbour said he often asked God to help him understand why these things were happening.

“There is one thing all human beings have in common. No matter what race, color, sex. We all suffer. And suffering bonds people. So, in a strange way, I think all that suffering brought us together.”