By Willy Thorn

Using a two-sides-of-the-coin approach — traditional liturgy and social outreach — St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Hollywood, has found success in a transitory neighborhood and an often anti-religious culture. In the process, it has become a model for catechetical training, new-member retention and fundraising.

“If you want snobby ‘privileged at prayer’ go to Beverly Hills,” said longtime parishioner Michael Ensign. “We’re a funny little outpost at Hollywood and Gardner; a real ship of fools. But we’re clear about who we are. We’re messy and very human, but in messiness is God.”

Ensign has been at the church for 22 years. He is a career actor and veteran of too many movies and television series to list (including Big Love, CSI, and Boston Legal).

“It doesn’t feel like every other place,” Ensign said. “The incense is thick, and everybody loves to sing. We pray like Catholics and sing like Baptists. But it’s not just some esoteric Sunday morning show. St. Thomas is active. We figure, if we don’t do it here, it won’t be done. We find people are looking for what we do.”

The Traditional

St. Thomas proudly declares itself the only Anglo-Catholic parish of any size in Los Angeles. The otherworldly quality of traditional liturgy — including weekly Latin Mass with Gregorian chant — appeals to parishioners’ dramatic side. The rector, the Rev. Ian Elliott Davies, restored the altar to an eastward-facing position and celebrates Mass with his back to the congregation in lieu of “the bartending position.”

Ensign recalls UCLA students fascinated by the celebration — as opposed to “‘that old hippy crap our parents like.’ One guy had never seen a pipe organ,” Ensign said. “For us baby boomers what was so meaningful, relevant, and rebellious is so old hat. What’s old is new again.”

The Not-So-Traditional

St. Thomas has a tradition of social activism in the surrounding area, including among the homeless in Hollywood and gay and lesbian residents of West Hollywood.

Its bimonthly “homeless breakfast club” was the first (and only) faith-based community to win a grant from the city of West Hollywood. It does referrals, and is developing a medical component that includes screenings, flu shots, and foot care. The parish also hosts 12-step programs in its hall.

“We also prepare lunches for the county HIV/AIDS clinic,” Fr. Davies said. “Parishioners take 200 lunches downtown to the University of Southern California hospital, to serve those waiting in line for testing and treatment. We collaborate with 30 other synagogues and churches. Each takes one day a month.”

“But Propostion 8 [California’s marriage amendment] has never been preached about,” Ensign said. “Preaching is always gospel-centered and Scripture-based. We’re here to worship Almighty God. If you want to be political, join a political group.”

A Remote Mission

In 1906 two missionary nuns visited the Rt. Rev. Joseph H. Johnson, Bishop of Los Angeles, to request a church for Hollywood. “It’s just orange groves and avocado trees,” the bishop purportedly responded. “I doubt very much anyone will ever live there.” The sisters settled on “doubting” St. Thomas as a patron.

The parish formed in 1912, and was admitted to the diocese in 1920. The neighborhood exploded in the next decade. An architect from the National Cathedral project designed a magnificent building. Then the Great Depression hit, and construction stalled at the nave (which still exists today). The area went middle class after World War II, suffered an influx of apartments and transitory inhabitants, and by the 1960s and 1970s was synonymous with sleaze and drugs.

Enter Father Barbour

“I got suckered in by Fr. Carroll Barbour,” Ensign admitted. “Urban legend goes: in the early 1980s St. Thomas was downgraded to mission status. The bishop called Fr. Barbour in — then in his late 50s, and serving in Long Beach, with a checkered past, and history of alcoholism — and said, basically, it was make or break for both.

“He took the parish Anglo-Catholic in theology, teaching, and ritual, and threw the doors wide open,” Ensign said. “He held his ground when parishioners left, then went to work. There was little money, no answering machine, let alone a secretary. No organ, no choir. Just a mock English gothic building in a so-so location.

“He was a little guy from North Carolina; a real jackass,” Ensign said. “But he was no-nonsense, and a real priest. Not a social worker, or politician; always humbled by the altar. The priesthood was most important in his life.

“He was a broken man. He often said, ‘God loves broken things. We break bread, and broken people are ready to listen,’” Ensign recalled. “He had a special spirituality of suffering.

“The church is a hospital for sinners and not a country club for the saved,” he said. “The church exemplified that. At a time of fear and trembling about HIV/AIDS, he became the first mainline clergyman to deliberately minister to the community.

“Lots of heartbreaking stuff: people coming up for communion with walkers, or pushing IV stands,” Ensign said. “He’d be on the pulpit: ‘I was up all night with so-and-so. He died, but had a good death.’”

The parish averaged one requiem Mass weekly, peaking at 11 in one month. “We joked it was supported by funeral fees,” Ensign said. St. Thomas quickly began interring ashes in the walls. Fr. Barbour built a chapel honoring Fr. Damien of Molokai, a 19th-century Roman Catholic Belgian who ministered to Hawaiian leper colonies. He is the patron for people with infectious diseases. The chapel has an AIDS memorial book, and Damien is honored alongside Saint Thomas at every Mass.

“In the same breath Fr. Barbour was so inclusive,” Ensign said. “He’d say: ‘I’m the worst sinner here. So get over anyone being over anyone else. That really resonated.”

Liver damage forced him out in 2000. His 2003 death made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, with a photo above the fold, and a full-page obituary inside. He was posthumously honored citywide.

The Congregation

The parish enjoys unique advantages. Hollywood Boulevard attracts thousands of tourists from around the world. Tour buses regularly pass the church. Both Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (of sidewalk handprint fame) and the Kodak Theater (home to the Academy Awards) are within a mile. Neighborhood home prices are middle-class, and rising.

But “L.A. is huge,” said Fr. Davies, who arrived in 2002 from All Saints Margaret Street, in London. “The freeways are packed all hours. People travel upwards of 60 miles for work and never meet anyone other than coworkers. It’s very disengaged.”

The congregation includes African Americans, and Asian, Latino and Caribbean immigrants. “But on the whole it is white,” Fr. Davies said. “Gay, straight, confused, whatever; probably 20 to 30 percent straight. Many former Roman Catholic monks and nuns, who find St. Thomas a helpful staging post in their personal journeys. Education is high — doctors, lawyers, teachers — mostly upper middle class. Some are wealthy indeed, and some wander in off the streets.”

St. Thomas “has a long history as an actor’s church,” Ensign said. Shelley Winters and Marilyn Monroe stopped in regularly. Rita Hayworth was married at St. Thomas, as was David Carradine, who was also baptized there. “Dorthy Lamour and Lana Turner — unfortunately, none wanted to make us rich.”

The tradition continues today, Ensign said. “Illeana Douglas, Robert Patrick, and Glynis Johns, plus others who don’t like their names out there. There’s 15 to 16 in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Plus, a lot of wannabe actors.”

Parishioner David Bomba is a scenic designer, who devoted his talents to the 1919 California-bungalow rectory. It previously served as a school, sexton’s quarters, and parish office, before Fr. Davies moved in.

“Fluorescent lights and linoleum; everything painted over,” Ensign said. Bomba “took it to 1919, with period moldings and lighting. He also incorporated leftover pieces from films: wallpaper from Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood; a tabletop Barbara Streisand provided; a bed from a Kevin Bacon movie.”

St. Thomas is not an easy community to join, but it’s not exclusive, either. In its catechumenate, 10 to 12 new parishioners meet every Saturday morning for nine months to discern their individual Christian vocations. The parish has an 82 percent retention rate.

“We take newcomers very seriously,” Ensign said. At Mass, “they stand, and get a little red bag, with a mug and brochure. It helps identify them at coffee hour, afterward. They also tour the building.” Follow-up includes monthly orientation, attention from a greeters and newcomers committee, and regular newcomer dinners.

“We do an [annual] every-member canvas,” Fr. Davies said. “All parishioners are visited by teams, for brunch, lunch or at least a coffee. We chat: What is parish life like? Where are you growing? What should we emphasize? Nobody gets a pledge card until their meeting.”

“We’ve found that people are looking for and hungry for a feeling of God,” Ensign said. “They yearn for connection with that which is greater and more meaningful than themselves. Especially in a place like L.A., that is transitory and schizophrenic.

“Everyone’s here to make it. If you don’t, you go back where you came from,” he said. “While you are who you are, you’re also a product. One day they want you, the next they don’t. There’s a great spiritual need for purpose and identity outside show business. St. Thomas is an oasis.”

Willy Thorn is a writer based in Milwaukee, Wis.