Carl A. Fisher; Aide to Mahony Was First Black Auxiliary Bishop in L.A.

Carl A. Fisher, the first African-American auxiliary bishop in the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese and only the 12th of his race in the country to attain that position, died Thursday of cancer that was diagnosed more than two years ago.

The personable churchman with the mellifluous voice rose from the segregated poverty of Mississippi to become one of five top aides to Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. Fisher was 47 when he died in his Lakewood home with Mahony and family members at his side. Mahony had interrupted a trip to Pope John Paul II’s World Youth Day in Denver last month to visit his friend and colleague.

In announcing Fisher’s death Thursday, Mahony called it “a great loss for the Catholic Church throughout the country as well as here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.”

“The courage with which he faced such a difficult illness inspired all of us,” Mahony said. “Surely his greatest gift to all of us over these years and months was in modeling how to endure suffering and how to offer our pains and sufferings for the good of others.”

When Mahony named Fisher a bishop in 1987, he called attention to Fisher’s legendary evangelization techniques and expressed hope that his new aide would be able to swell the ranks of the black Catholics in what is now a 3.4-million-member diocese, the nation’s largest.

Mahony said Fisher’s “impact on the church far exceeds these relatively few years. . . . The great pride Bishop Fisher took in his roots as an African-American overflowed into his ministry as a shepherd for everyone.”

The archdiocese on Aug. 23 released a moving farewell letter Fisher had written, in which he reaffirmed his faith in the Resurrection, quoted St. Thomas More’s final words--”Until we merrily meet in heaven”--and asked that his fellow Catholics “never let us forget one another, and let the assurances of our prayers continue to unite us in friendship and in love.” He signed the letter “Devotedly in the Lord.”

Fisher’s rhetoric and fervor, the Los Angeles Times Magazine said in a lengthy 1987 interview, seemed “more reminiscent of Southern evangelism than of the Latin church. . . . He brings with him a proselytizing zeal.”

Although he fashioned himself a conservative when it came to such touchstone dogma as the celibacy of priests, abortion and the place of homosexuals in the faith, Fisher also could provide contemporary answers to centuries-old vexations.

During a classroom visit to Pius X High School in Downey, he was emphasizing the need for celibacy before marriage.

“What if you love someone and want to share something with him?” a girl interrupted.

The bishop grinned and answered with a few lines from the chorus of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

He then launched into a prayer concerning maturity, responsibility and Christian values. It was, he pronounced with some merriment, a prayer for which he was once paid $78 by Soap Opera Digest magazine:

“Almighty and Eternal God, help us to realize that we are no longer ‘The Young and the Restless.’ But help us remember that we have ‘One Life to Live.’ Let us remain, always close to you, walking not in ‘Ryan’s Hope’ but in Christian hope. For us, destination is heaven, not J. R.’s ‘Dallas.’ ”

The students were amused and impressed.

Blessed with a booming voice and winning smile, Fisher spent the few years left to him after his appointment as auxiliary bishop immersed in the San Pedro Pastoral Region, which consists of 65 parishes, 53 elementary schools, 10 high schools and three hospitals. It stretches south from the streets of South-Central Los Angeles to the South Bay and Southeast areas of Los Angeles County.

To cover it, Fisher arose at 6 each day at his rectory at St. Pancratius Church in Lakewood and generally worked until 11 or later at night.

He sat in on religion classes at the schools in his region, visited with parishioners (who he said made him uncomfortable when they would kiss his ring) and often spoke at services in various churches, choosing to stand directly in front of the congregation rather than speak from the pulpit.

His infectious manner and powerful voice he credited to his aunt, Wilma Mayfield, a Baptist “who preached fire and brimstone.”

He prowled the aisles of his churches as he spoke, microphone in hand, often interrupting his sermons to ask questions of parishioners.

Fisher said he was called to the priesthood as a child. He was raised a Catholic in a family headed by a shipyard worker. He attended an all-black parochial school in Pascagoula, Miss., run by white nuns and priests from the Josephite Order, which was founded in the 19th Century to reach out to black Americans.

He left home at 14 and went to Newburgh, N.Y., where he studied at Epiphany Apostolic College High School and then the Epiphany Apostolic College, also run by Josephites.

As a student and traditionalist, Fisher was at odds with the black power activists of the 1960s, but he did argue against separate seminaries for blacks.

He was ordained in 1973 and a year later earned a master’s degree in public relations from American University in Washington.

Fisher spent the next decade in churches in Baltimore, increasing the number of families at St. Francis Xavier, the nation’s oldest African-American Catholic parish, from 300 to 900. He also successfully sued a local country club for reneging on a promise to let the church use the club for a picnic when the whites who ran it found out the church was black.

He was also remembered with fondness in Baltimore for his many visits--some of them unannounced--to parishioners.

When Fisher was ordained a bishop by Cardinal Mahony at the Sports Arena in February, 1987, 10 of his 11 brothers and sisters and 75 of his former St. Francis parishioners were on hand. His widowed mother, Evelyn, also attended, noting of the occasion:

“If heaven is greater than this, it must be a very beautiful place.”

Mahony said Fisher had asked to be buried in a violet chasuble, a special Mass vestment fronted with African kinte cloth to denote the particular sufferings of African-Americans from slavery, racism and discrimination.

Mahony will preside at the funeral Mass at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in Downtown Los Angeles, followed by burial in Cavalry Cemetery on the Eastside. Fisher will be buried in the grave next to the one designated for Mahony.

A liturgical vigil service is scheduled in Fisher’s own St. Pancratius Church in Lakewood at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Memorial Masses will be conducted at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in churches of each of the four deaneries of the San Pedro Pastoral Region--St. Raymond’s Church, Downey; St. Joseph’s Church, Long Beach; St. Hilary’s Church, Pico Rivera, and St. Lawrence Martyr Church, Redondo Beach.