[img]1549|exact|||no_popup[/img]
Mr. Tiggs
As he was walking out of St. Augustine Catholic Church this afternoon, following the funeral for Father Richard Gleason, former city commissioner Marcus Tiggs paused to reflect on what the 71-year-old associate pastor really was like.
“He was so down to earth,” said Mr. Tiggs, an every-Sunday communicant at one of the Westside’s oldest churches. “He was such a sports fan, especially of Notre Dame football. Periodically, we would chat about football. A buddy of mine, Paul, went with him to a couple of Notre Dame games at the Coliseum.”
The funloving priest who graduated from St. Anthony High School, Long Beach, “was a special person who enjoyed talking about his family when he was growing up. At the table he would say, ‘I shouldn’t be eating this. I know I am being bad.”
An incident two Sundays ago triggered a chuckle in Mr. Tiggs. This came as the winds of controversy were blowing through the community following a sensitive pronouncement by the new Archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose H. Gomez. He had just stripped his much-debated predecessor, Cardinal Mahony, of any official duties.
Explain, Please
“All churches in the Archdiocese were required to read a statement,” Mr. Tiggs said.
“We didn’t.
“Then Father Richard said, ‘I’m supposed to read this because communication, sometime, can kind of be off. So I am reading it now instead of last week,’” and Mr. Tiggs was unable to suppress a burst of laughter.
“Sometimes he was long.
“But I remember when the missal (prayer book) changed, words were changed. This was six months ago. Father Richard would say, ‘Now you have to help me. This is new. I mess up sometimes.’”
On occasion, said Mr. Tiggs, the lighthearted priest would softly scold the congregation for not participating as heartily as he wanted them to pray with him.
“This is not just about me,” Father Richard would say with a see-through frown.
And that, said a laughing Mr. Tiggs, is why he preferred the first Mass on Sunday mornings, at 6:30. Father Richard always kept everybody in every pew constantly alert and involved, even if he did speak lengthily.
