Parish to Help L.A. Priest Celebrate 90th Birthday

The elderly priest sits in his recliner with a welcoming smile. He stretches out a gnarled hand and whispers a warm greeting in a thick Irish brogue.

Dressed in meticulously shined black shoes, creased black pants and a starched black shirt with a white clerical collar, he appears ready to make the rounds of his beloved parish, St. John the Baptist de la Salle Catholic Church.

But as he approaches his 90th birthday, which past and present parishioners will help him celebrate Sunday, Msgr. Peter O’Sullivan gets more visits than he makes.

Parishioners Don Hennelly and Mary Alice McCarthy stop by O’Sullivan’s cottage on the church campus at Chatsworth Street and Hayvenhurst Avenue in Granada Hills to update the retired rector on birthday party plans. They tell him about the 300 guests expected to crowd the church fellowship hall for the 4 p.m. potluck dinner.

Marty Rocha, who describes herself as the closest thing O’Sullivan will ever get to a personal secretary, keeps him abreast of who has responded to party invitations.

O’Sullivan mostly appears amused by all the fuss.

“I’m not overflowing about it,” O’Sullivan says, referring to the party in advance of his July 4 birthday. “I’m not a young kid anymore. My days for enjoying social things are over.”

Despite his protests, O’Sullivan will be the center of attention Sunday as longtime parishioners will probably reminisce about the tall, straight-backed cleric who arrived as the new parish priest in March 1954 and how he shepherded his flock through births and baptisms, first communions and confirmations, weddings and funerals until he retired from the pulpit in 1986.

O’Sullivan was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, on July 4, 1910, the fifth of six children.

At 18, O’Sullivan followed an older brother and sister into religious service when he entered St. Patrick’s Seminary in Thurles in September 1928. Six years later, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest.

After his ordination, O’Sullivan joined his older brother Father Thomas O’Sullivan in Los Angeles. The reunited brothers served at churches in what was then the Los Angeles-San Diego Diocese.

For nearly two decades, the younger O’Sullivan served as an assistant pastor at several parishes in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Lynwood and Santa Maria. He was named pastor of St. Rose of Lima in Simi Valley in September 1951.

Three years later, O’Sullivan was named pastor of a new parish called St. John the Baptist de la Salle in the San Fernando Valley.

“There was no church building,” O’Sullivan said. “It was 10 acres of horse ranch property.” O’Sullivan and his 100-member congregation celebrated Mass in a nearby building that had been used as an Army hospital during World War II.

Undeterred, O’Sullivan set about building a church and school.

After preaching sermons, O’Sullivan would spend Sunday afternoons calling on the new families moving into the Valley. The parish today boasts 3,400 families.