Woodland Hills : Rededication Planned for Renovated Church

St. Mel Catholic Church will hold a rededication Sunday to celebrate completion of $2 million in renovations and earthquake damage repairs.

Cardinal Roger Mahony will officiate at the 11 a.m. Mass in the church at 20870 Ventura Blvd.

Concelebrating the Mass will be three priests who have served as pastors at St. Mel: Msgr. Padraic Loftus, Msgr. Michael J. O’Connor, who founded the parish, and Msgr. John Naughton.

The church sustained $1 million in damage in the January 1994 Northridge earthquake, which, among other things, destroyed the church’s organ, said Father Raymond Morales, an assistant pastor. An additional $1 million was spent, he said, to enhance the worship space of the church’s sanctuary.

The latter, he said, included installation of a new altar, as well as a new baptismal font designed for adults and infants, and a new children’s chapel, which will be dedicated to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of Catholic schools in the United States.

Morales said that during construction, which took more than a year, the congregation held Mass in a large, plastic-covered geodesic dome on the school playground.

The church, which had a running joke about the rustic arrangement, posted a sign in front of the church that read, “St. Mel in the Field.”