Loss of St. Isidore Fires Up Its Faithful : Religion: Members of the closed Los Alamitos Catholic church haven’t given up the fight, despite trend toward consolidation.

The locks on the doors of St. Isidore have been changed and Mass this Sunday will be said a quarter-mile away, but the labor of love to save the tiny church in Los Alamitos is far from over.

St. Isidore parishioners vow to celebrate their own Mass outside the now-closed mission church Sunday, rather than attend nearby St. Hedwig, as a gesture of resistance. But the Diocese of Orange, following a nationwide trend, is pushing ahead with plans to unify small neighborhood churches such as St. Isidore with larger ones nearby.

“I’m reluctant to perpetuate a situation that has little room for growth and keeps communities apart,” said Msgr. Jaime Soto, the diocese’s vicar of Hispanic Ministry, “rather than bringing them together as God intends us to be.”

Built 77 years ago by sugar-beet fieldworkers on donated land, St. Isidore is not by any means the only congregation to face this crisis. Across the nation, consolidation of Roman Catholic churches is the wave of the future, officials say. Aging buildings, tight budgets, priest shortages and a desire to integrate communities all have led to the closing of small churches.

Diocese in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Chicago have folded smaller ethnic churches--many located in the inner city--into bigger congregations in a strategy known as “cluster pastoral planning.”

Another national trend within the Catholic community is to “twin” a smaller church with a larger one, assigning one priest to handle two congregations. For many parishioners, however, sharing clergy has only fueled fears of mass closings; many suspect that the smallest and weakest churches--or those housed in the smallest buildings--eventually will close.

“There have been massive readjustments all over the United States, with enormous numbers of mergers,” said Tom Roberts, managing editor of the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper covering the denomination. “Some of them have been extremely wrenching.”

Indeed, for parishioners at St. Isidore the closure this week came as a slap in the face.

“We just love our church,” said Rebecca Cagle, who received her First Communion, was confirmed and married at St. Isidore. “We just want our Mass. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. We, the people, built that church. None of this makes any sense.”

St. Isidore’s building, like those of many other churches in the diocese, is unsafe in an earthquake, said Rev. Daniel Hopcus of St. Hedwig. To retrofit St. Isidore would cost the diocese $275,000 to $300,000, he said.

“It’s a very old church and that would be very expensive,” Hopcus said. “The diocese is not in the position to commit that amount of money for a building for one Mass per week. We have taken the opportunity to move the Mass to St. Hedwig.”

St. Hedwig Catholic Church serves 3,089 families, has three full-time priests and offers five services each Sunday. A Spanish-language Mass will be added at 1:30 p.m. for the Spanish-speaking parishioners of St. Isidore, Hopcus said.

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A shortage of Spanish-speaking priests is a factor in the decision to close St. Isidore, officials said.

Activists from the tiny church, however, brush aside many of the reasons cited by diocesan officials for the closure.

“We’ve never demanded a Spanish-speaking priest,” said Leticia Aguilar, 33. “That and their claims that they can’t afford the retrofitting are just smoke screens. I think they just want to eliminate competition between both churches for fund-raising. Because we’re Latino and some of us are poor, they know we can’t disperse.”

And many also are skeptical of the benefits of consolidation. “If we’re going to have our own Mass at St. Hedwig, I don’t see how we will be integrated,” parishioner Lorena Gallardo said. “We’ll be in that building but we won’t be mingling with the rest of the people. To me, unity is a bilingual Mass at 9 a.m.”

Since May, a group called Comite del Amor, or Committee of Love, has been working to save the church, which for decades has celebrated one Mass per week. The committee has proposed an aggressive fund-raising campaign and has received moral support from the Los Alamitos City Council.

A member of St. Hedwig, Los Alamitos Councilman Chuck Sylvia says the city may be able to save his sister church by declaring St. Isidore a historical site. The designation might allow the structure to stand without the retrofitting.

“St. Isidore serves a good purpose for our parish,” Sylvia said. “There are a lot of people who will stop going to church if they can’t go there because some don’t have cars to get to St. Hedwig. I’ve been going to the vigils with my rosary hoping for some divine intervention.”

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Those who love St. Isidore have been praying at nightly vigils. Last weekend, parishioners held a festival at Laurel Park to raise money to repair their cherished church. Many refuse to attend the first Mass at St. Hedwig on Sunday, opting instead to worship outside St. Isidore even if it means sacrificing a full-blown Mass conducted by a priest. To officiate a Mass there, priests need the permission of the parish.

“We’re not defying the church,” Gallardo said. “Some of us are very hurt. There are many who cannot accept this has happened and our way or releasing our anger is by not showing up.”

Church officials, however, say the bad feelings will pass.

Hopcus, who has led St. Hedwig for nine years, said he can understand the community’s sentimental attachment to St. Isidore.

“The theological reason is the biggest component of this move,” Hopcus said. “We have people of different cultures worshiping and working and praying in the same faith community. Instead of having two churches a couple of blocks from each other, we will have the different cultures functioning within the same church community.”

The closing of St. Isidore has taken an emotional toll on Hopcus as well.

“It’s heartbreaking when you’re dealing with things that don’t make people happy,” Hopcus said. “But I have to deal with the broader picture, not just the concerns of a person or a group. I’m trying to do it in a kindly way, a professional way and a prayerful way.”