Prayers, and Tolerance, Thrive in 4 Languages

At the close of Midnight Mass, the words of the ancient Christmas carol echoing through the old church tug powerfully at Father Hermann-Joseph Rettig’s emotions.

“Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,” his German-speaking parishioners sing.

The Hungarians take up the second verse: “Csendes ej, szent nyugalom.”

Next, the Spanish speakers: “Noche de paz, noche de amor.”

Finally, the fourth stanza by those who speak English: “Silent night, holy night.”

At St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, a South-Central parish threatened by the Watts riots in 1965 and the rioting in 1992, the common humanity experienced when Rettig’s diverse congregation celebrates the birth of the Prince of Peace is a moment of sublime harmony.

“It is the most moving part of the entire ceremony,” Rettig said. “I can’t get through that without crying.”

The church was founded in 1928 to minister to German and Hungarian-speaking Catholics and over the years has reached out to Spanish- and English-speaking residents as the neighborhood just south of downtown Los Angeles has changed.

In a larger sense, St. Stephen’s Church, with its intricately carved altar and pulpit and stained glass windows depicting Eastern European religious allegories, is a microcosm of Los Angeles.

Rettig, who celebrates Mass in all four languages throughout the year, hopes that his parish will be a symbol of tolerance in a city where ethnic and cultural diversity can enrich and inspire--or tear at the fabric of civic culture.

“Almost every year I try to include something in the Christmas homily about the meaning of Christmas being tolerance, tolerance of each other,” said Rettig, 39, who has been at the parish 13 years, the last eight as pastor. “If God was so tolerant of all of us with all our weaknesses that he was willing to come down and become one of us--which was a huge step down for him--it is incredibly arrogant of us not to be tolerant of each other.”

Fluent in German, Hungarian, Spanish and English, the pastor will speak this morning for about five minutes in each language during his Christmas homily. (He also speaks Italian, which he learned while studying in Rome for four years where he was sent by his religious order, the Norbertine Fathers, founded in 1121.)

Rettig’s second Christmas theme--”The message of the angels”--will be about peace to those of good will.

For Rettig, peace is more than a pious sentiment or an abstract concept. During the rioting five years ago, he and the neighborhood were threatened by the upheaval.

“There were fires everywhere we looked. At one point people tried to drag me out of my car, like [trucker] Reginald Denny,” said Rettig, who is of German American heritage. “They had come threatening to burn down the church, trying to break into the parish hall. I had to ward them off.”

Rettig said he believes the fact that he was wearing his Roman collar and what it represented in the eyes of his would-be assailants saved his life.

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He sees his parish as common ground, where each week faith surmounts differences in this congregation of about 1,000. At no time is this more true than at the special Christmas Eve service.

“It’s such a unique opportunity for people to come together who wouldn’t ordinarily come together,” Rettig said. “People come from far away just to witness it and to really be a part of it.”

Marlene Emerson, 60, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Austrian-Hungarian background, has been a parishioner since 1956. For her, the Christmas Eve service with its Latin and English liturgy and hymns sung in different tongues is time made to stand still.

“It represents my past, my native language, what my parents and grandparents stood for, and I am elated about this,” said Emerson, who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes. “But I am also elated that the Hungarian and Spanish speak ing people, mainly Mexicans, and the black Americans come and get the same thing. I get the feeling of being close to my past but standing joyously in the present.”

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This year’s Midnight Mass featured Greg Fedderly, a tenor who music critics praise as a rising young star of Los Angeles opera; and the Most Rev. Stephen E. Blaire, an auxiliary bishop in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who shared the pulpit with Rettig.

“The parish, like the city, is much like a mosaic, a beautiful mosaic,” Rettig said. “The more we can honor our different cultural backgrounds and try to bring them together for the good of each other, the more we can learn from each other, the better off the city will be.”