Father Mathias Lani
A 28-year-old priest of German-Hungarian family from the Banat stepped off the train in Los Angeles in April 1928. Over the next 26 years he built a parish, fed a broken Europe, and became “a true friend” to everyone from displaced refugees to a world-famous scientist.
His Story
1928 · The Beginning
The priest from the Banat
Born to a German-Hungarian family in the Banat, Fr. Lani arrived in Los Angeles on April 19, 1928 at the invitation of Bishop John J. Cantwell — and said the first parish Mass just three days later, in a Polish church that opened its doors to the newcomers. Within two years he had purchased the lots on Woodlawn Avenue and dedicated the first St. Stephen chapel.
When German-Hungarian families from the Banat, Batschka and Srem asked to join in 1929, he made the parish bilingual without hesitation — it was, after all, his own heritage. By 1933 he was shepherding a four-language parish with up to six Sunday Masses.
1944–1953 · The Relief Years
Feeding a broken Europe
Through American-Hungarian Relief, founded in 1944, Fr. Lani turned his small parish into a national hub of postwar aid: over $250,000 sent to Hungary, a children’s home rebuilt there, and displaced persons of seventeen nationalities resettled in Los Angeles — work that earned the parish its name, the “Ellis Island of Los Angeles.”
In 1948, Cardinal József Mindszenty — soon to be imprisoned by the communist regime — sent Fr. Lani a testimonial letter of gratitude, preserved in facsimile in the Jubilee album.
The Man Behind the Collar
Composer, choirmaster, friend
Fr. Lani was a trained musician and composer who led the choir of St. Vibiana Cathedral. Among the well-wishers in the parish’s 1953 Silver Jubilee album stands a letter from Theodore von Kármán, the Caltech aerospace pioneer, who wrote of “the spiritual support I received from Father Lani especially in days of grave sorrows” and called him “a true friend of my late dear mother and my beloved sister.”
“Do not worry. God will provide.”Fr. Lani’s motto — recalled at the parish’s 90th anniversary, 2018
1954 · Legacy
A jubilee, then farewell
Fr. Lani lived to see his parish’s Silver Jubilee in June 1953 — a Solemn High Mass and a gala evening at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. He died the following year, having given his entire priesthood to one parish. The community he built — bilingual, generous, stubbornly hopeful — is still here.
Continue the Story The Carved Sanctuary