When information first trickled out that Chris Ponnet, the longtime pastor of the St. Camillus Heart for Non secular Care in Lincoln Heights, had died, photographs and condolences popped up on-line.
There was {a photograph} of him being arrested in 2011 at a blockade in downtown Los Angeles over the battle in Afghanistan. One other picture confirmed him at an anti-death-penalty rally holding a cross with the message “substitute the dying penalty” written throughout the middle.
The condolences included one from Sacred Coronary heart Excessive Faculty in Lincoln Heights, the place he was praised as a “beloved presider and homilist at our lots.”
Ponnet is being remembered as a person who usually served because the lone customer to a whole lot dying of COVID-19, who presided over an annual service honoring the unclaimed useless and who attended protests and was arrested dozens of instances within the course of.
For relations, although, he was “the one that cared most for us,” mentioned his brother Jim.
The household introduced Ponnet’s passing on Oct. 7 on the age of 68.
He’s survived by his sisters Elizabeth and Mary Alice and brother Jim. He was an uncle to greater than 20 nieces and nephews.
A viewing, rosary and vigil shall be held at St. Luke’s in Temple Metropolis on Monday, starting at 5:30 p.m.
The formal celebration of life funeral Mass is scheduled for Tuesday at Cathedral of Our Woman of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles at 10 a.m.
Father Chris Ponnet is arrested after an Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace rally that blocked Los Angeles Avenue in downtown L.A.
(Los Angeles Occasions)
Each the viewing and funeral are open to the general public, whereas the burial is personal.
Ponnet spent the final 30 years as pastor of St. Camillus, which is throughout the road from USC’s well being sciences campus.
There he served as the location administrator for the City Interfaith Chaplaincy Program, the place he helped prepare the subsequent technology of chaplains. He was additionally the director of the Los Angeles Common Medical Heart’s Workplace of Non secular Care.
It was within the latter place that Ponnet attended to remoted COVID-19 sufferers in the course of the pandemic’s first yr.
Ponnet absolutely donned private protecting tools — a helmet, masks and robe — and prayed with COVID sufferers in isolation when few others have been allowed to enter, Connie Castro, spokesperson for the Los Angeles Common Medical Heart, mentioned in an announcement.
“Father Chris’s legacy is one among love, service, and unwavering religion,” the assertion learn. “Beloved by employees, sufferers, and the broader neighborhood, he leaves a void that shall be deeply felt. His reminiscence and the values he instilled will proceed to encourage all who knew him.”
The primary yr of COVID-19 deeply affected Ponnet.
“I’ve journeyed with 9 folks on someday in dying,” Ponnet mentioned in March 2021. He added: “You need to cope with that and put it into context as a result of the subsequent individual wants you.”
Ponnet additionally volunteered his time to preside over the annual ceremony and burial of the unclaimed useless in Boyle Heights, throughout which a whole lot of L.A. County residents are buried collectively.
“Chris Ponnet was, at first, a person of God,” his sister-in-law Daybreak mentioned. “Every little thing he did was guided by the message of Jesus Christ — to like others, to look after them, and to be sort.”
Ponnet was born in 1957 at then Garfield Hospital in Monterey Park.
He was the youngest of eight kids for fogeys Mary and Frank J. Ponnet, who lived in Temple Metropolis.
His father fought in World Conflict II’s Battle of the Bulge and got here house to function a mailman, earlier than dying of a coronary heart assault in 1961. Needing earnings, his mom served as a registered nurse for greater than twenty years at Alhambra Hospital.
“We grew up as a religious Catholic household that believed in going to Mass weekly, that believed in household first,” mentioned Elizabeth Ponnet, 78, one among Chris Ponnet’s 4 sisters. “We believed in serving to out and I feel Chris actually believed in that.”
Ponnet was as an altar server at St. Luke’s Church, the place he attended elementary and center college.
In eighth grade, Ponnet recited Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve a dream” speech for a category undertaking.
“That’s after I thought he could be concerned in service and serving to folks for the remainder of his life,” his sister Elizabeth mentioned.
Ponnet adopted his brother, Frank A. Ponnet, into the now-defunct Our Woman Queen of Angels Minor Seminary in San Fernando and later into St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo.
The place Frank veered into a lifetime of educating, Chris continued his path into the priesthood.
“He beloved God and I all the time thought he would turn into a priest,” his brother Jim, 74, mentioned. “He all the time needed to assist.”
Ponnet was ordained as a priest on Dec. 3, 1983, and commenced his ministry at Our Woman of the Valley in Canoga Park and Our Woman of the Assumption in Claremont earlier than serving 30-plus years because the pastor of St. Camillus.
He championed quite a lot of causes by means of a sturdy and politically energetic life. In 1990, he pressured former GOP Rep. David Dreier of La Verne to chop army assist to El Salvador throughout that nation’s civil battle.
He referred to as the first Gulf Conflict “unjust” and, because the pacifist director of the Catholic Peace Coalition, led a quick in opposition to the battle’s glorification.
He additionally took stands on native points, such because the legalization of Pomona card rooms, whereas he led the archdiocese’s homosexual and lesbian ministry and AIDS ministry.
Considered one of his many ardour initiatives was the battle in opposition to the dying penalty. He was a board member of Dying Penalty Watch, a corporation whose purpose is to abolish the punishment.
“He was all the time organizing and all the time on the streets,” mentioned Mike Farrell, the previous actor and a Dying Penalty Watch advocate.
Ponnet’s advocacy led to his arrest a minimum of 30 instances, in accordance with the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
But, greater than the activism, it’s Ponnet’s humility that can keep on with him, Farrell mentioned.
Dying Penalty Watch hosts an annual gala on the Skirball Cultural Heart throughout which it honors people who’ve fought to rescind the dying penalty.
At every of these occasions, Ponnet would usually discover himself helping others.
“He would pull out chairs, he would direct folks to tables and do no matter was wanted,” Farrell mentioned. “There’s nobody like him.”
