'We are not merely passengers in the Bark of Peter; we're expected to be part of the crew.'

---Al Antczak, 1922-2006

Usually, he was behind a camera. Yet his face and presence were as much a part of the Church of Los Angeles as the newspaper to which he devoted four decades of his life.

Alphonse Joseph Antczak, 84, retired Tidings editor who died Oct. 5 following complications from pneumonia while visiting relatives in San Diego, recorded the news of the local Catholic Church for 42 post-WWII years with his trusty camera, two-fingered typing skills and unshakable faith.

"Al Antczak was an editor of unequalled integrity and professionalism," declared Cardinal Roger Mahony in praising Al's dedication to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. "He saw the world about us through the particular lenses of Jesus Christ and the Church. His editorials were always thoughtful, to the point and challenging for all of us."

"He was frugal, simple, hardworking and filled with devotion to the church and his job," said Hermine Lees, Tidings staff writer who joined the paper three years before Al's retirement in 1989.

From the '40s through the '80s, Al traveled up and down the old El Camino Real, from remote Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on the Central Coast to San Juan Capistrano in south Orange County. His put 296,000 miles on one car alone, a vehicle providentially won at a parish raffle, and on a typical weekend covered any number of parish events.

That, Hermine recalled, made for a hectic Monday and Tuesday, The Tidings' main production days. At that time, it wasn't unusual for the staff to work until 7, 8 or 9 p.m. on Tuesday, deadline day, putting the weekly paper to bed in the days when typeset copy was pasted on boards and picture layouts had to be individually calculated using a percentage wheel.

"Al would say, 'We're here to evangelize,'" said Hermine. During his 16 years as The Tidings' 16th editor beginning in 1973 (he started as a Tidings' reporter in 1947), the paper offered local and international news as well as commentary by well-known church leaders on a variety of controversial topics, such as abortion and euthanasia. "A Catholic newspaper is crucial in this because it defines issues in terms of the gospel," Al wrote in an article describing his editorial philosophy.

In a 1987 editorial, Al declared that Catholic newspapers "report the news of the world from an objective moral, religious experience." He continued, "Life is not a holy card. The people of the Church, faith sharers, must and do address public policy issues on a day to day basis: refugees, immigrants, homeless, elderly, education, marriage, single parents, AIDS, alcoholism, sex clinics, surrogate parenting, test tube babies, abortion, disarmament, nuclear weapons, Marxism and militarism. Catholic newspapers, including The Tidings, address these issues week after week in terms of reporting responsible Church expressions and action on these subjects."

While at The Tidings, Al was witness to the phenomenal expansion of the local church, including the construction of 92 parishes, 200 schools, a dozen general hospitals and three seminaries. He chronicled archdiocesan events during the last year of Archbishop John J. Cantwell, the entire tenures of Cardinal James Francis McIntyre and Cardinal Timothy Manning and the first four years of Cardinal Roger Mahony's administration.

When Pope John Paul II visited Los Angeles in 1987, Al fanned Tidings staff all over the city to capture the Polish pontiff's reception. As the son of a Polish native, Al shared a connection with the pope, whom he had interviewed in 1976 when then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla visited Los Angeles. Senator (later President) John F. Kennedy, King Hussein, Dr. Thomas Dooley, Cardinal Josef Mindszenty of Hungary and Mother Teresa of Calcutta were among other famous people Al interviewed over the years.

Among the many awards Al received were the Benemerenti Medal from Pope John Paul II, the Knight of St. Gregory papal honor, and the Cardinal's Award in 1993. The Catholic Press Association also honored Al for editorial writing, reporting and newspaper design.

Through the decades, Al reported locally on each wave of immigrants to the Southland: Post-WWII Displaced Europeans in 1947, refugees from Cuba in 1959, Vietnamese refugees in 1975 and Central American refugees in the '80s. Descended from immigrants and married to Helen Fitzpatrick, the daughter of an Irish immigrant, Al saw the plight of immigrants through the lens of his faith, reflected in a 1983 Tidings' editorial, "Illegal aliens" (see page 12).

When his eight children, four boys and four girls, asked him how to describe their multi-ethnic origins, he told them with his droll sense of humor: "Say you're PIMAs --- Polish Irish Mexican American." Al and Helen, LMU and Mount St. Mary's College graduates, respectively, gave each of their children 12 years of Catholic education. One daughter, Dominican Sister Mary Catherine, went on to direct schools conducted in California and Mexico by her community, the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose.

Al always paid tribute to his Catholic educators, beginning with the Felician Sisters who taught him his prayers and catechism in Polish in Detroit, and the Sisters of the Holy Names and the Sisters of Mercy who taught him after his family moved to Los Angeles, and the Jesuits he encountered at Loyola High School and University.

Chaplains and religious he met during his WWII service in India and China with the US Army Air Corps also made him "reflect on the universality of the Church, the heroism of missionaries who suffer for those they serve, and the interrelation of peoples and nations," Al wrote in a 1995 Tidings article.

He credited former Tidings editors, including his immediate predecessor Msgr. Patrick Roche, for role modeling the pursuit of "knowledge and love of the Church." He also counted parish priests he met during his years at The Tidings as among his many teachers, "men who live zealous hard-working lives in our midst."

Msgr. Royale Vadakin, archdiocesan vicar general who was a 26-year-old priest when he first met Al, remembers the Tidings' editor's honesty and hospitality. "He was a true churchman. Everything he did, he had that sense of church; he was there for the long run, and he always had time for people," said Msgr. Vadakin.

"He always remembered your name," said Dennis Doyle, a former '70s seminarian who wrote weekly Tidings' articles about college senior year seminary life. "He was very friendly --- a real news guy. The Tidings was really a vocation for him."

As a continuation of that vocation, Al served on the board of directors of several organizations, including the Catholic Press Council, the Newman Club of Los Angeles, the Maryvale advisory board and the development board of the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. After retirement, he was the volunteer editor of Lifelines, the quarterly newsletter of the Right to Life League's Pregnancy Help Center in San Gabriel.

Msgr. John Sheridan, 90, Our Lady of Malibu pastor emeritus who wrote numerous Tidings articles and columns over the years, characterized Al as being a man of "great gentility." Hearing of his demise, the Irish-born missionary priest sent this reflection to The Tidings:

"Al's life, his whole demeanor, was, for us who knew him, an extraordinarily felicitous wedding of the hidden and transparent. During his nearly half-century as reporter/writer/editor, he covered without exception all the great and small events in the life of the local church. The question ever asked (I asked it myself): 'Was Al Antczak there?' Yes, there indeed he was, hidden on the fringes or moving in stingily to capture what turned out to be the center of it all.

"While you were ever aware of Al's presence, he preferred the background. So it was with his character and gifts. A thinker, writer, observer (he could have had a job at one time with Time Magazine), he was a Catholic churchman who knew, relished his faith, and could communicate its mysteries with as much or more affectiveness than any person I have ever known. May the clay rest lightly on his gentle grave."

Al is survived by four daughters, Dominican Sister Mary Catherine Antczak, Helen Sanchez and husband Alfred, Margaret Antczak, and Theresa White and husband John; four sons, Alphonse Jr., Thomas and wife Karen, John and Joseph; six grandchildren, Alexander, Andrew, Michael, Robyn, Elizabeth and Julie; and two great-grandchildren, Kenny and Giselle.

Funeral Mass was celebrated Oct. 11 at San Gabriel Mission's Chapel of the Annunciation. Burial was at the Mission cemetery.