Pastors

 

Founding Pastor of St. Joseph the Worker, The Rev. Austin J. Greene, is a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, born in that city on June 20, 1907. He completed his studies for the priesthood at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, and was ordained on June 10, 1933. In 1933, due to a surplus of priests in the Massachusetts Diocese, Father Greene and other priests were loaned to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  It was shortly thereafter that he became affiliated with the Archdiocese, where he served as assistant until 1950, when he entered the Armed Forces. Upon his discharge in 1953, he was appointed Pastor of S. S. Simon and Jude parish in Huntington Beach.

 In May 1956 he came to St. Joseph the Worker where he served as Pastor for twenty-four years. On June 8, 1958, he celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood. In 1977 the parish hall was renamed the “Fr. Austin J. Greene Hall” in his honor, with the presentation of a commemorative plaque by then City Councilman Don Lorenzen. In June 1978, Fr. Greene was elevated to the rank of domestic prelate with the title Monsignor. He died October 29, 1981 having accomplished his goal of creating a Parish dedicated to selfless devotion to Jesus Christ. A memorial mass was offered for Msgr. Greene on November 9, 1981 with Cardinal Timothy Manning as main celebrant. In April 2002, the newly renovated parish hall was once again renamed—and is now called  “ The Monsignor Austin J. Greene Conference Center.”

 “Love and devotion are the earmarks of our own Workers. I cannot describe in detail every ingredient in the recipe of Parish-building…I do hope (this) will give you a hint of the dedication, the sweat, and yes, some tears that have resulted in this glorious day.  The pictures and notes tell only a part of our saga together.  But when 1,200 dedicated families linked up with St. Joseph himself – and put themselves at the mercy and love of God, the growth from the ground-breaking to the Jubilee you see today is both blest and blessed...May God, whose blessing brought us to this day, bless you all. May the peace and happiness He has brought to me through you continue to flow into your hearts and homes. I pray gratefully, that He keeps you and your children in His loving care…”

 

The second Pastor of St. Joseph the Worker, Msgr. James Loughnane, was ordained at All Hallows Seminary, Dublin, in June 1961. Six weeks later he arrived in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, where his first assignment was Associate Pastor at St. John Baptist de la Salle in Granada Hills. Other assignments took him to St. Cornelius, Long Beach; St. Bonaventure, Huntington Beach; and St. Barnabas, Long Beach. He came to St. Joseph the Worker in 1980, succeeding founding pastor Msgr. Austin J. Greene. He served our parish until 1993 and is now Pastor at St. Denis, Diamond Bar.

Presently, Msgr. Loughnane serves as Dean of Deanery 12, chairs the Priests’ Personnel Board, and is a member of the editorial board of The Tidings. In November 2005, Pope Benedict XVI honored Msgr. Loughnane with the personal title of Protonotary Apostolic, the highest order of Monsignor.

 

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Msgr. Gehl attended Our Lady Queen of the Angels Minor Seminary and St. John’s Seminary College and Theologate. He was ordained a priest in 1974.

Msgr. Gehl served as Associate Pastor of St. Elizabeth in Altadena, St. Michael in Los Angeles, and St. Mary in Palmdale. He also served as Associate Director, Archdiocesan Office of Religious Education. Msgr. Gehl earned his Master of Arts in Family Ministry from Fordham University in New York. He subsequently served as Director of the  Archdiocesan Office of Family Life.

He was the third Pastor of St. Joseph the Worker, serving from May 1993 to June 2004 and is now Pastor of St. Bede the Venerable in La Cañada Flintridge. He was Dean of Deanery 5, a member of the Council of Priests, and a member of the College of Consultors for Cardinal Mahony.

Born on an American air force base in Munich on June 15, 1958 as the first of six children, Father Kevin was raised in the family’s hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, and was educated by the School Sisters of Notre Dame and the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood. Upon graduation from high school in 1976, he came to Orange County, California, and entered St. Michael’s Seminary of the Norbertine Fathers. After receiving his Master’s degree in theology from the Dominicans at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, he was ordained in the cathedral of Orange on June 25, 1984.

The first year of priesthood was spent in an ancient 1,000-year-old Benedictine monastery in Hungary, where he practiced that difficult language. From 1985 until 2004, he served at St. Stephen’s parish near downtown Los Angeles, ministering to the German-, Hungarian-, Spanish-, and English-speaking communities of that unique parish.

As a priest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he then served for one year at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Gardena before being appointed to St. Joseph the Worker by Cardinal Roger Mahony. Father Kevin Rettig came to St. Joseph the Worker in July 2005. He is only the fourth pastor to serve the parish since its founding in 1956.