Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church & School is a Catholic church and elementary school located in Encino, Los Angeles, California, at the corner of Ventura Boulevard and White Oak. The parish operates the Our Lady of Grace Elementary School. Crespi Carmelite High School is also adjacent to the parish.
Our Lady of Grace Parish and Our Lady of Grace Elementary School were developed in the years following World War II as the population of the San Fernando Valley boomed. The parish celebrated its first Mass on December 16, 1945, in the packing room of Canoga Farms, owned by Frank Flowers, a Presbyterian. [1]
In the 1990s the Church served 2,400 families. [2] It began holding mass in Spanish in 1991, as the neighborhood's population of Mexican immigrants burgeoned. [3]
The Church grounds feature a garden and fountain sculpture erected in memory of Nicole Parker, a child who was the victim of a notorious 1993 child kidnapping and murder. [4] [5]
In 1965 a solid gold chalice usually stored in the church's safe, was reported stolen. [6]
In January 2018, a priest, Father Juan Cano, was removed from the church "on suspicion of having inappropriate conduct with multiple female parishioners - one of whom is an underage girl." [7]
The parish's elementary school opened in September 1947. [8] As of 1998, the elementary school had 336 pupils. [3] Notable former students include author Barry Lopez. [9]
In February 1959, the Los Angeles Archdiocese announced plans to build a high school for 600 boys, staffed by Carmelite fathers, adjacent to Our Lady of Grace. The high school opened in the fall of 1959 as Crespi Carmelite High School. [10] [11] Crespi has produced numerous notable athletes, including All-Pro football player Randy Cross, Major League Baseball player and World Series MVP Rick Dempsey, NBA player Paul Mokeski, and Major League Baseball pitcher and NLCS MVP Jeff Suppan. Singers Gunnar and Matthew Nelson attended the school in the 1980s. Actors Martin Donovan and Michael Angarano are also Crespi alumni.
The parish has been served by several pastors over its history:
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. The archdiocese's cathedra is in Los Angeles, the archdiocese comprises the California counties of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura. The cathedral is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, and its present archbishop is José Horacio Gómez Velasco. With over five million professing members and weekly liturgies celebrated in 32 languages, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is numerically the single largest and most ethnically diverse archdiocese in the United States.
Encino is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.
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Gerald Eugene Wilkerson is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 1997 to 2015 and as apostolic administrator for the Diocese of Monterey for six months in 2018 and 2019.
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Artishia Garcia Wilkerson Jordan was an American educator and clubwoman, based in Los Angeles.
Alejandro Dumbrigue Aclan is a Philippine-born American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, serving as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in California since 2019.
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