Name of Church St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Cathedral
Address 1627 Jamacha Way, El Cajon, CA 92019
Phone number (619) 579-7913
Website www.stpeterchaldean.org
Mass times Saturday vigil, 4 p.m. (English). Sunday, 8 a.m. (Arabic), 10 a.m. (English), noon (Chaldean/Aramaic), 4 p.m. (English). (View Masses on their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/stpeterchaldean/.)
Music Most of the liturgy is sung; hymns are in Aramaic, the language of Christ.
Confessions Sundays, 8 a.m. – noon, during Masses.
Names of priests Fr. Simon Esshaki, acting rector. Fr. Michael Bazzi, rector emeritus. Fr. Simon has been at the parish since 2014. He is a first generation Iraqi-American; his parents are from Baghdad. Fr. Bazzi is from Tel Keppe, a formerly Christian village in northern Iraq. Islamic state fighters have forced most of the Christians to leave his former village, however, as well as nearby Mosul, another former Christian enclave. Fr. Bazzi came to the United States in 1974, and has served at St. Peter’s since 1985. He has done much to settle Iraqi Christians in the San Diego area.
School No.
Special activities The parish has a new 24-hour adoration chapel behind the statue of Mary and to the left.
Fellow parishioners The parish serves 5,000 Chaldean Catholics from Iraq. El Cajon has a large Chaldean population of 50,000, with another 10,000 in the surrounding San Diego area. There are two other Chaldean Catholic parishes in El Cajon, St. Michael’s and St. Thomas the Apostle. Parishioners frequently rotate between parishes.
Parking There is ample parking on the grounds.
Additional observations The cathedral is the seat of the Eparchy (diocese) of St. Peter the Apostle. It, and the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle headquartered in Detroit, serve 210,000 Chaldean Catholics in the United States. They are in union with Rome. St. Peter’s was built in 1983, and for most of that time its pastor/rector has been Fr. Bazzi, who is retired. He will leave the cathedral at the end of 2018.
I’ve been to Chaldean liturgies. They are beautiful. It’s a glimpse into how the earliest Catholics might have celebrated Mass. Catholic Chaldean Masses count for your Sunday obligation, so some Sunday visit this church for the 10:00 Mass for a change. You can go to Communion too since they are in communion with Rome, but watch how others receive before going to Communion yourself. It’s different. Oh, and no OCP or GIA music at those Masses. They wouldn’t dare cheapen their sacred liturgies with that bad music.
The Chaldean mass is at noon. That’s the one you mean, I think.
El Cajon has been inundated with Chaldeans thanks to Reagan and the Bushes. While their liturgies may be beautiful, a whole host of problems have resulted from the Chaldean diaspora: the crime rate in El Cajon has soared and the criminal gangs are violent and dangerous. It is not all peaches and cream.
And are today’s “immigrants” all peaches and cream?
And having lived in El Cajon the non Chaldean/Assyrian residents are not all peaches and cream. The city is a mess because of a number of problems. The Christians who came fleeing persecution are not the same as the caravan that is at our border from South and Central America and Mexico.
Any evidence to present that crime rate and/or gang activity higher among Chaldeans than other groups?
Love the Crusader motif. No moat or drawbridge?