Monsignor Msgr.

John Moretta began the meeting with a prayer of thanks for the community to express its views.

He then moved on to a post that wasn’t so kumbaya, warning that Boyle Heights was famous for his social justice movements and wouldn’t stand for any position.

cochinadas,

or waste.

At Resurrection Catholic Church that night last June, the overcrowded crowd quickly heated up, with many speakers bashing a plan by the owner of the old Sears building to house thousands of the homeless.

chants of

For a!

Out!

arrange through the room.

After three hours of relentless mob anger, project manager Bill Taormina declared the plan dead and agreed to consider community input on future proposals.

But the fallout from the rancorous encounter soon followed, with much of it falling directly on Moretta, the host.

The archdiocese received a complaint alleging that the priest had fomented a lynch mob mentality.

Los Angeles City Council member Kevin de Len, who was chosen by many speakers even though he was not at the meeting, called the hostility outrageous. One De Len staffer who sparked much of the anger said he was disappointed not to receive a personal apology from Moretta.

Moretta eventually apologized, saying he let the meeting get out of hand.

In four decades as a Resurrections pastor, Moretta has been a respected leader on community issues at stake, making him at times a lightning rod for criticism, including from elected officials.

From a planned prison near Boyle Heights to lead contamination from an Exide battery plant, the Italian-American South LA resident who jump-started his fluent Spanish in a Mexican town in the 1960s has battled against threats to its mostly low-income Latino parishioners, as they mark the milestones of their lives at baptisms, quinceaeras, weddings, and funerals.

I know some priests want to be neutral, but I can’t, said 81-year-old Moretta, whose old-fashioned diction is reminiscent of 1940s Warner Bros. movies. If people need help, I’m going to help. That’s how I’ve always seen it.

Moretta is six feet tall and heavily built, slightly bent and short-cropped white hair.

He grew up in Catholic schools and graduated from St Pius X High School in Downey. There was not a single moment

where in which

he suddenly found his calling, like in the movies, he said. On the contrary, his decision to become a priest was gradual and fueled by the love shown to him by the priests and nuns at the school.

After seminary school in Camarillo, he served as a young priest in Southern California, including St. Boniface in Anaheim, St. Augustine in Culver City, and St. Hilary in Pico Rivera, before landing in Boyle Heights in 1983.

As Moretta settled into his new parish, community activists stepped up their efforts against a proposed prison for 1,450 inmates across the LA River from the neighborhood.

In the summer of 1986, Moretta and landscape architect Frank Villalobos invited dozens of Neighborhood Watch leaders, mostly women, to Resurrection to organize an anti-prison march, along with a group of 47 community organizations called the Coalition Against the Prison in East Los Angeles.

Moretta dubbed the female leaders the Mothers of East Los Angeles, or MELA

,

and became their media spokesman and accompanied them on weekly protest marches.

With Villalobos and business owner Steve Kasten, Moretta donated tens of thousands of dollars for the women to travel to Sacramento and lobby lawmakers.

He loved his people very much and would do anything, said Teresa Marquez, now 75, president of the Mothers

in front of

East Los Angeles and one of the founders. He stood up for us when so many others didn’t.”

As the leader of the movement, Moretta found herself at odds with a powerful politician.

Shortly after being elected to represent the area, Councilman Richard Polanco cast an important committee vote that breathed new life into the prison project, leading some to label him a “sellout.”

Moretta and the activists stalled the project for years with lawsuits and calls for environmental impact assessments. They eventually won converts into the state legislature, including Polanco. Some could not forgive Polanco, but Moretta urged unity against a common enemy.

In September 1992, the Mothers’ Group and other activists gathered at Resurrection to celebrate the government. Pete Wilson’s decision to demolish the prison. “We won the war!” They called.

Also in the church were some politicians who had finally reacted to the persistence of the activists. Polanco, who helped negotiate the measure that Wilson signed, was in attendance.

Vader has always been a very courageous leader and a pillar of support in the Boyle Heights community, Polanco said recently. He is a preacher who not only talks about his faith, but also about social justice and environmental issues. He is a throwback to the civil rights movement.

“

Moretta and the parent group have also spearheaded successful campaigns to halt the construction of an oil pipeline through Boyle Heights and a hazardous waste incinerator in Vernon. In 2017, Moretta brought Resurrection Catholic School students to speak about the rancid smells emanating from nearby meatpacking plants before the South Coast Air Quality Management District voted unanimously to take steps to address the problem.

“Everyone is talking about environmental justice, and it’s really trendy right now,” Villalobos said. “Vader led the push back in the ’80s when nobody was talking about the concept.

But Moretta has been unable to declare victory against the lead contamination spread by a now-closed Exide battery factory.

A recent Times investigation found that many homes and gardens on the Eastside are still polluted despite a massive effort to detoxify the area.

Moretta has spent countless hours knocking on doors informing residents about the leadership and its possible effects on their health.

He has implored those living in contaminated zones not to stay outside for too long, to take off their shoes before entering the house and to follow others

public health guidelines such as preventing children from touching dirt and washing their toys often.

“I remember passing by a house a few years ago where a mother and daughter were making tamales in their backyard and had no idea anything was wrong or dangerous,” he said. “It would have been rural if it wasn’t so devastating.”

Moretta’s hero is Pope John XXIII, perhaps most famous for helping integrate the local vernacular rather than Latin.

masses masses

in 1964.

Moretta, whose Spanish has a modest but understandable accent, began Spanish-language services in his two previous parishes, St. Augustine and St. Hilary.

Even though he’s not Latino, we feel like he’s one of us, said Resurrection parishioner Ana Maria De Anda, 70, who credited Moretta’s church fundraisers and activities with keeping her eight kids busy and away from gangs and drugs.

Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer who recently ran unsuccessfully for LA mayor, recalls a time in the early 1990s when homicides and gang violence reached unprecedented heights.

Caruso was then a member of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, and Moretta advocated for increased patrols and other assistance.

“I didn’t know who Father John was, and he called me out of the blue with a no-nonsense phone call,” said Caruso, who occasionally attends

mass mass

at Resurrection. “He said, ‘Rick, kids are dying in the streets,’ and within a few days we made changes.”

His work to steer children in a positive direction has continued through the years. In the mid-2000s, Moretta secured funding for a federal gang reduction program known as project CLEAR

,

Community Law Enforcement and Restoration, or CLEAR,

that witch

provided more officers on the street, as well as counseling, tutors and job placements for local youth.

Most Monday nights, as he has done for decades, Moretta hosts a community watch forum at Resurrection.

At a forum in early March, he gleefully sliced ​​down two jellies

donuts donuts

from the boxes he had brought.

Dressed all in black, a puffy raincoat, slacks, and tennis shoes, Moretta listened as Villalobos, his old ally, spoke of Exide.

You don’t hear politicians talking about it anymore, and, perhaps most disturbingly, our youth aren’t interested, Villalobos said. The whole social justice discussion has shifted to affordable housing and homelessness, and Exide has gone off the hook.

Marquez of Mothers of East Los Angeles said her job has become more difficult since Exide filed for bankruptcy in 2020.

We questioned their contractors responsible for cleanup, but Exide keeps changing them and it’s hard to know who to contact, Marquez said. It’s frustrating, but work continues.

Moretta focuses on testing residents for lead poisoning and studying the long-term consequences, such as cancer and learning disabilities.

Moretta told the 12 or so people at the meeting that blood tests can only detect lead for 36 days after it enters the body. He has advocated for non-invasive bone testing that can detect spores introduced years or even decades ago.

Seven years ago, as he approached the mandatory retirement age of 75, Moretta asked the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to allow him to continue indefinitely. He said he views his job as “a mission for life” and wants to keep going as long as he can “still move and still serve”.

“It’s easy to recognize that there are so many things that work against us as a community,” Moretta said. “However, what matters is how we move forward and how we ease the burdens of others.”