Los Angeles fire victims grieve lost homes, church: 'It's too much'

LOS ANGELES (OSV News) -- Pacific Palisades is the only place Sam Laganà has ever called home.

The man known today as the official stadium voice of the Los Angeles Rams grew up playing in the closely knit community's streets. He was educated in its public schools, and received his faith at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, where he went to catechism class as a child.

On the night of Jan. 7, he watched all of it -- the streets, the homes, the schools and his beloved church -- burn to ashes.

"It's too much," said Laganà. "Overwhelming."

While the last residents were evacuating the picturesque enclave in LA's Westside that night, Laganà was using water from garden hoses and his backyard jacuzzi to put out the flames encircling his home of 28 years.

"Next door everything was all burned already, all of the sides," recalled Laganà. "The next-door neighbor's house was blowing all of its embers straight at me."

Thanks to friends who soon arrived to help with the firefight, Laganà's house was saved. Corpus Christi's church building, located directly downhill from his house, was not. Laganà saw the church in flames as he finally drove out of the neighborhood around 11 p.m. Tuesday night.

"As I was leaving, I was trying to defend my home and hoping to keep the [Corpus Christi] school from catching on fire by watering down the hillsides," said Laganà.

Laganà's efforts may be one reason the parish school was mostly spared, apart from its gym. And so, on Jan. 9, Laganà and his wife were among the dozens of Corpus Christi parishioners at a special Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to pray for those affected by the fires raging through parts of Los Angeles County.

Many, if not most, of them, had become both physically and spiritually homeless in the last 36 hours.

Longtime parishioner Rick McGeagh serves on Corpus Christi's pastoral advisory council. His worst fears came true Wednesday morning, when his son hiked up through Will Rogers State Park and confirmed that their home was gone.

But looking through pictures of the rubble sent by his son, McGeagh was amazed when he saw the sole part of his home left standing: a statue of the Virgin Mary installed outside in 1998 when they moved in.

"That statue belonged to my grandmother, who died in 1997," explained McGeagh. "The fact that she survived, when everything, even our Viking stove, burned down, I think is miraculous. There's no way to explain that."

McGeagh describes Corpus Christi as "a strong family" that's grown thanks to ties fostered by the parish school and the steady leadership of Msgr. Liam Kidney, who has been the parish's pastor since 1999.

"It's actually an easy choice to be here," McGeagh told Angelus, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' media outlet, after the cathedral Mass, held the day after he learned his home was lost.

"I need God's strength, as we all do," he said. "We're all going to have a tough road ahead to rebuild our homes, and Monsignor's got to rebuild the church, and he's not alone. We'll be there to help."

In his homily at the Mass, Archbishop Gomez acknowledged "we can be tempted to question God's love for us, to wonder where he is when good people are suffering."

While there are no "easy answers" after such a tragedy, the archbishop said that God calls each person "to be instruments that show his compassion and care to those who are suffering."

"Love is what is asked from us in this challenging moment," said the archbishop, who celebrated another Mass for fire victims later that day at Mission San Gabriel, and was scheduled for another one late afternoon Friday at Incarnation Church in Glendale.

As the Mass ended with the popular Catholic hymn "Be Not Afraid," its lyrics left a row of Corpus Christi parishioners in tears. Among them were Ed and Chris Amos, who after evacuating on Tuesday watched aghast as an orange glow in the distance grew closer in the live feed from their home security camera.

"You could see the flames approaching the house, and then (the feed) went dead," said Ed, who with his wife was staying at the West LA home of a fellow doctor at Providence St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.

After losing the home they built 20 years ago, the couple said hearing encouraging words from Archbishop Gomez and Msgr. Kidney at the Mass while seeing parishioners' faces again was a necessary "part of the healing process."

"I think that what comes out of something like this is it teaches you the value of life, it makes you appreciate each day more," said Ed.

Likewise, McGeagh predicted the calamity would give his family and parish community "a greater appreciation for the smaller things in our relationships, and not stuff."

"I think we're all humbler today than we were before," said McGeagh, visibly close to tears after the Mass.

After greeting each of his parishioners, Msgr. Kidney admitted it will take time to grieve and absorb the scope of the catastrophe.

"It still hasn't sunk in yet," said Msgr. Kidney, who reluctantly evacuated the parish rectory Tuesday afternoon with only his passport and a few legal papers, never to see his home of 25 years again.

The priest believes the destruction will bring about a necessary "rebuilding of a community" that hasn't been the same since the Covid-19 pandemic kept some parishioners away from church for months, and others for years.

"Covid kind of ripped us apart," he said. "This is going to bring us together."

Msgr. Kidney has already gotten calls from parishioners promising support, even offering to provide temporary classrooms offsite for the parish school.

"I had somebody immediately contact me and say, 'if you're going to rebuild (the church), you let us know, we're right there with you."

At 80 years old, Msgr. Kidney understands that kind of rebuilding is only secondary.

"I've always preached that the church is the people, not the building," he said in remarks at the end of the Mass, unable to hide the pain in his Irish brogue. "So now we're going to get a chance to prove that."