Parish History: 2004 Centennial Edition
Blessed Sacrament Parish History Book
A Changing Neighbhorhood
Even in the calm before the Vatican II storm the Blessed Sacrament parish was beginning to experience a fundamental shift. As Dr. Cremin recalls, "I am 82 years of age and I must say the early years in Hollywood were just great. Hollywood was a very much sought out place to live. For many years the rents in Hollywood were about 10-20 % above the surrounding community. Hollywood Blvd. was filled with all sorts of fine stores, theatres, dining places. Fashionable people frequented the streets to see and be seen. One could even see a star now and then which was very true of our church. All that began to change in the late 60's and the changes were mirrored by the Church and School.
"Parking became difficult and quite expensive. Fine stores such as the Broadway Department Store went out of business. Gradually, garish souvenir shops replaced more legitimate businesses. Fast food shops replaced the fine dining places. Yucca Corridor became the druggies' Road to Hell which led to its being closed off by huge iron barriers. Fine old houses were replaced by garish apartment buildings" and the area grew steadily more transient and rundown.
Perhaps the biggest impact on the area was the migration of movies studios away from the now-densely populated Hollywood region to the relatively wider open spaces such as Burbank. Changing economic factors aside, Blessed Sacrament was also beginning to be affected by shifting cultural values. In 1960 a complaint was lodged with the Archbishop by a divorced father whose two sons were going on a Cub Scout outing. When the father volunteered to be a chaperone, Fr. Ring turned him down, calling him "unfit and undesirable" because he was divorced. The priest also chastised the man for "living in adultery" with his second wife, who had the added stigma of being Mormon instead of Catholic. The Archbishop urged Fr. Ring and the man to talk out their differences, but it was symptomatic of how traditional Church values was running headlong into the changing mores of American society. Suddenly, being a parish priest was a lot more complicated and challenging.
In 1963 Fr. Joseph Carroll took over as pastor. In a letter to Monsignor Benjamin Hawkes, the priest admitted: "I never worked so hard in my life. Parish work is extremely interesting but also very demanding. However, I knew that some day I would have to go to work, but I didn't anticipate this much of it."
In March 1964, Blessed Sacrament parishioners participated in a survey on a number of hot-button issues and whether they felt the Church should:
A) Make no changes in the teaching
B) Make exceptions in difficult cases
C) Make some modification
D) Change her teaching completely
The purpose of the study was explained in a letter from the Diocese. "In the present study attention is also paid to Catholic attitudes, particularly in certain important areas such as relationships to priests, feelings with regards to divorce and remarriage and artificial birth control.
"In no way is it implied that future Church beliefs will be affected by what a majority thinks. The questionnaire simply asks how an adult really feels, here and now, about these questions."
The intent of Vatican II, which was convened by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and closed by Pope Paul VI in 1965, was to help adapt the Church to meet the challenge of modern time. Once when asked what his purpose of convening the Council was, Pope John walked over to a window and pushed it open, to let in a brisk breeze of fresh air. It took three years for the Council to finish but the transition from published document to adoption by the Catholic community was not a smooth one.
As in any change, some people are quick to adopt while others resist change. Priests are no different. At Blessed Sacrament Fr. Mellon was eager to start adopting some of the Council's suggestions and convinced Fr. Carroll to let a parishioner read the Gospel. In June 1964, Father Carroll received a letter from Bishop Ward, who was not pleased that a lay person had been allowed to read the Gospel, feeling it was the job of the celebrant. The pastor defending the decision, saying he was trying to gradually prepare the parishioners for the changes about to be implemented by Vatican II.
Cardinal McIntyre responded by acknowledging, "May I say that the Ordinary, too, is endeavoring to present to the people at the proper time a medium of which the new regulations of the liturgy will be readily absorbed." Then he added, "However, the changes when made will be confined to the Constitution and the action of the Conference of Bishops of the United States. The speaker seems to have gone beyond those restrictions."
While the cease and desist order may have led Fr. Carroll to put a halt to any reforms for the time being, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary felt obliged to start incorporating the imminent changes brought about by Vatican II in their curriculum to the school children. The disagreement that ensued ultimately led to the Sisters' teaching duties at the school to be terminated in 1968 and to their moving out of the convent.
The internal struggles didn't prevent Blessed Sacrament from continuing its work as a conduit for community relations. In May 1967, the Church hosted a gathering of over three thousand 3000 multi-denomination visitors for Hollywood's first Catholic Church Open House. Celebrated as a "Good Neighbors Day" for people of other faiths to learn more about Catholicism, its purpose was to foster better understanding among nearby parishes.
Although throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s, parishioner and priest alike at Blessed Sacrament grew more comfortable with the changes in the mass and liturgy but not everyone was willing to give up a lifetime of tradition. In 1972, then-pastor Rev. Karl Von der Ahe received an impassioned letter from an elderly parishioner.
"I am completely devastated by the fact that at today's noon mass at Blessed Sacrament, people were asked to stand to received Holy Communion. When should they kneel down if not at Holy Communion?
"When the day arrives that I am forced to receive my God standing then I can no longer go to Holy Communion because feeling as I do I am sure I would be damned were I not to kneel down."
But the majority worked to incorporate what they saw as new opportunities to become more involved with the Church and the parish. Groups such as the Parish Relations Council and Parish Coordinating Council were organized as a way to give parishioners a more direct advisory voice to the pastor.
The 1970s also brought a new challenge. As young families bypassed settling in Hollywood in favor of other areas, the average age of the Blessed Sacrament parishioners grew steadily older, with a sizable portion of the parish now on fixed incomes. As a result, diminishing contributions and increased costs to run the parish left Blessed Sacrament financially vulnerable. In the 1950s, the church had operated at an annual surplus of $75,000 and often took money out of its account to help less fortunate parishes. But now, Blessed Sacrament found itself on the needing end and by 1973 was running at $4,000 a month deficit. As a result, fundraisers such as the yearly carnival took on increased importance, as did attracting more young families to the parish.
But within a decade, the rapidly changing demographics of Los Angeles would energize Blessed Sacrament with a new parishioner base and a new sense of purpose.
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