As we finish up the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Province of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans), we take a look at some of the works of the Holy Ghost Fathers and Brothers in Southern California.  

Efforts to bring the Spiritans to California started as early as 1888 when Archbishop Patrick Riordan of San Francisco asked the Congregation to extend their mission there. Similarly, in 1939 Archbishop John Cantwell of Los Angeles also made requests. Both Riordan and Cantwell were graduates of Spiritan schools in Europe.  It wasn’t until Bishop Charles F. Buddy of San Diego and Spiritan Provincial Fr. George Collins, C.S.Sp., exchanged letters in 1942 that a Spiritan foundation in Southern California became a possibility. Bp. Buddy invited the Spiritans to establish a house of their own in his Diocese to serve as a residence for Spiritans preaching retreats and serving in various missions. He stressed that their knowledge of the Spanish language was essential to serve the 100,000 Mexican people in his Diocese. 

Hemet 
Meanwhile, Spiritan Fr. James Hyland, C.S.Sp., from the Mission Band, had also gone to California to preach in some parishes. In his free time, he surveyed the area for the Spiritans’ residence and then went to see Bp. Buddy in San Diego. The Bishop made several proposals and, a few weeks later, Fr. Collins himself traveled to California. Together, Collins and Hyland visited six localities and then discussed various proposals with Bp. Buddy. A few days later, the bishop sent him a formal invitation to establish the mission residence and a parish in Hemet, and to take over the St. Leo’s parish in the Eden Gardens community near Del Mar. The bishop also begged him to accept a mission to the Black community in Riverside. These places were not developed and needed a lot of work. The Spiritans accepted the offers, and Frs.  James Hyland, C.S.Sp., John T Donohue, C.S.Sp., Joseph B. Murphy, C.S.Sp., and Charles F. Trotter, C.S.Sp., constituted the team selected to start the new foundations. 

Hemet, CA, was founded by Dutch and Scandanavian settlers at the foot of Mt. San Jacinto, south of Riverside. By 1945, there was a population of 3,500 and 23 Protestant churches. Even though there were only 60 Catholic families living in Hemet, the area seemed that an increase in population was to come after the war, prompting the development of the Catholic Church. 

Fr. Hyland was the first pastor of the Hemet parish with Frs. Paul J. Lippert, C.S.Sp., and Joachim Alves Correia, C.S.Sp., as his assistants. Fr. Correia was an immigrant who was exiled from Portugal and forced to flee because of his fearless criticism of the increasingly more dictatorial regime of President Salazar. His mission was to devote his time to the Portuguese immigrants in southern California, while Hyland and Lippert directed their attention to Hemet and Idyllwild, a town 22 miles east of Hemet. 

In Hemet, Fr. Lippert, still in uniform, pending release from the Army, said the first Mass in the auditorium of the local Women’s Club. Hyland bought 20 acres of land for $20,000. 5 acres were used for the new parish of Our Lady of the Valley and the remaining 15 were used for the Spiritan community. The owner of the land stipulated that he would leave the farmhouse on the property only a year later.  

Fr. Lippert and a carpenter built the Our Lady of the Valley Chapel, which was blessed in December 1946 by Bp. Buddy. The building materials and Church debt were covered by a raffle and donations from the Catholic Extension Society.  The winner of the raffle donated a new Studebaker back to Fr. Hyland, which allowed him to sell it and spend the money converting the farmhouse into a rectory. Statistics from 1948 show that almost all 168 Catholics were practicing their faith, and this number rose to 440 practicing Catholics. 

Since those long ago “pioneering days”, and the Diocese of San Bernardino was formed, many new parishes began from the roots of Our Lady of the Valley in Hemet.  Notably, in 1991 Bishop Phillip Straling, the founding Bishop of the new Diocese asked the Spiritans to begin a new parish in Hemet dedicated to the Holy Spirit.  Fr. Silvio A. D’Ostilio, C.S.Sp. was the founding pastor of this community.

Del Mar 
Two attempts to establish a church at Eden Gardens in Del Mar were abandoned until Bp. Buddy named Fr. John Donohue pastor there and Fr. Charles Trotter as assistant, beginning March 1st, 1945. Despite its name, Eden Gardens, with a population of 650, was no Eden. Families were doubling up in houses and failing to find places to rent due to the housing issues caused by the war. Despite this, a parishioner loaned the pastor a 20x30 foot adobe house to serve as a provisional chapel until a better one could be provided.

Due to the housing crisis, the priests lived in a Del Mar hotel until they found better accommodations near the mission in mid-March. The priests were invited to live in jockey quarters at the famous Del Mar Racetrack, which was not meant for overnight occupancy. Wind easily entered the building between boards, the only furniture was 2 broken cots and a three-burner stove, and the lavatory facilities were half a block down the road. Finally, in November, the priests moved to a house in Solana Beach five minutes away from Eden Gardens. 

Meanwhile, the priests started work among the Mexican community. Nearly all families were nominally Catholic. While the make-shift chapel was too small and building an adobe, Spanish style Church was preferred, the decision was delayed by Bp Buddy due to expenses. Instead, they acquired a fifty-five-foot navy barracks and converted it into a church for the foreseeable future dedicated to St. Leo. 

Riverside 
It was soon after his arrival in Riverside that Spiritan Fr. Joseph B. Murphy, a former Army Air Corps chaplain, decided that opening a separate parish for Black Catholics would not be beneficial for the area because the state laws did not require it and he was against segregation as a matter of principle. He stated, “We want a parish for the human race, not for whites, blacks, or reds.” He was supported by many other priests including Fr. Hyland and Fr. Van Garsse, a Belgian-born local pastor, “a marvelous priest”, who served the Mexican population of the city. Bp. Buddy agreed with Murphy but asked the Spiritans in Riverside to take a special interest in all Black Catholics throughout the city and encourage them to join the nearest parish. 

This led to the building of the new Holy Spirit Church and School. “Holy Spirit” was the original name of St. Catherine of Alexandria Church.  Also, a school for 400 children was planned and built.  Despite the school and the 90 Catholic families in the area, there was no church building yet. Murphy had purchased 16 acres of land for the parish where an open-air shed was used to hold the first Mass on Pentecost Sunday 1946. Once the weather became colder, parishioners moved their Masses to a temporary chapel in a house on the property.  

Despite Fr. Murphy’s popularity with the parishioners, his contentious relationship with Bp. Buddy led to Buddy requesting a replacement priest. This angered the congregation who advocated for him to return to no avail.

The next year, Spiritan Fr. Paul Lippert became the pastor, and with the assistance of a generous donor could build a church. The donor requested for the name to be changed from “Holy Spirit” to “St. Catherine’s.” 

The parish served until the 1950s when the modest chapel was replaced by a 1000 seat Spanish style edifice. The parish motto was “from a barn to a basilica”!  As the population of Riverside grew, the church did as well. 

By 1957 there was an estimated 85,000 residents in Riverside and 22,000 of them were Catholic. Because of this massive increase of population, the elementary school needed to be rebuilt to accommodate the growing population. 
Meanwhile, the diocese opened Notre Dame College Preparatory School which in its first year in 1956, had over 500 freshmen. Because there were not enough staff members to accommodate these many students, Fr. Francis McGlynn, C.S.Sp., the Spiritan Provincial, offered to provide the personnel to take over the school the next school year. Fr. Patrick O’Carroll, C.S.Sp., became the Superior of the new community. Bp. Buddy ordered the immediate expansion of the facilities by the construction of three block buildings with more classrooms, library, cafeteria, gymnasium, and a faculty residence. 

Additionally, in 1956 Pope Pius XII named Spiritan Fr. Richard H. Ackerman, C.S.Sp., the Auxiliary to Bp. Buddy. He was the first American-born Spiritan to be raised to episcopacy and served in the San Diego diocese until 1960 when he became the Bishop of Covington, Kentucky. 

While the nearest Spiritan communities were in “distant” Bakersfield (Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and School) and even “more distant” Tucson (St. John the Evangelist Church and School), the Spiritans served in many other ministries in the Diocese of San Diego and later the Diocese of San Bernardino.  Some of these include Queen of Angels, Idyllwild; St. Joseph, Soboba; the Newman Center at UCR; Our Lady of Guadalupe, Highgrove; St. Anthony, Casa Blanca; Boys Town of the Desert, Beaumont; Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Indio; San Salvador, Colton; St. Adelaide, Highland; Chaplaincies at various hospitals and military institutions; and the University of San Diego.



Confreres that are buried in the Spiritan Cemetery in Hemet, CA

Requiescat in pace!

Fr. James A. Hyland                     67               December 6, 1953

Fr. Ambrose M. Leech                 43               December 21, 1954

Fr. William J. Long                        65               March 25, 1956

Fr. Eugene N. McGuigan             72         July 7, 1958

Fr. John Donahue                        54              December 24, 1965

Fr. Patrick F. O'Carroll             59               October 26, 1967

Fr. George J. Collins              70          December 17, 1968

Fr. Herman F. Flynn                        78          April 13, 1977

Fr. William G. McMenemy           84          July 10, 1982

Fr. Michael Mackey                     83               July 27. 1982

Fr. Hugo Kuster                        79          September 3, 1983

Fr. Francis X. O'Reilly             77         January 4, 1988

Fr. George A. Harcar             79         April 7, 1991

Fr. Martin F. Connolly             78         August 25, 1993

Fr. James P. O'Reilly                     77         July 11, 1994

Fr. Norman F. Lord                       77         April 16, 1995

Fr. John A. Strmiska             94         September 16, 1995

Fr. Kenneth F. Milford             89         July 16, 1999

Fr. Matthew C. Evanstock           78         May 15, 2000

Fr. Anthony F. Frommholz             84         January 27, 2002

Fr. Edmond J. Leonard                 92             February 19, 2003

Fr. Anton P. Morgenroth              91         January 26, 2004

Fr. Daniel C. Murphy              82         July 12, 2004 

Fr. Roy A. Burkhart                         85         July 30, 2004

Bro. Robert W. Hassel              64         November 1, 2005

Fr. Edward G. Marley              88         December 18, 2005

Fr. Charles J. Coffey              84         May 22, 2006

Fr. Ivan Fitzwilliam                          87             July 1, 2007

Fr. Clement F. Lachowsky            87         July 17, 2008 

Fr. Reginald DeFour                      87             November 15, 2021 

Eternal life grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.