St. Andrew Catholic Church — Attraction in Pasadena

I don't recommend you to bring your children to get baptized or to have their communion. Very unorganized, no communication between staff, very rude and inconsiderate. I hate to even have to write a bad review on my church. But everything by was handled very poorly. When I first enrolled my daughter for communion classes I was given a date and time for the ceremony. And I recall this day perfectly because the coordinator Mr. John Anderson told me that I would be able to choose the ceremony date depending on whether I wanted it in Spanish and/or English. I saved the date. Fast forward to today a week before the ceremony they informed me that she wasn't going to have her ceremony this year and that she would need to complete yet another year of classes. Never was I informed that from the start. I called back to get more information and confirm whether or not my daughter was going to have her communion. I called Mr. John Anderson no call back. Called the office, finally got a call back from one of the other coordinators Ms. Juana. I explained to her the situation and how upset my daughter was over it and if there was anything we could do. Mrs. Juana at the time was kind and understanding. She informed me she would be adding my daughter to the list and that my daughter would be having her ceremony this weekend. She apologized for the clerical error. I was so thankful for her. My daughter was happy we went to go buy her dress get some decorations and food. Everything was great. Then 2 days later. I get a call from Mr. John Anderson telling me that there has been a mistake, that my daughter will NOT be having her communion this weekend. He didn't even know that I already had spoke to Juana regarding the matter. He had to put me on hold for 30 minutes to call her on the other line to confirm whether or not Ms. Juana had told me that. He probably was rude to her, because she was so afraid to tell me that there was nothing she could do anymore.

This has been the worst experience ever. My poor daughter getting shut down twice, not to mention all the money I put in on her classes and her celebration. To hear my daughter cry and tell me she won't be able to wear her beautiful dress was heart breaking. So I thought to my self, there has to be something I can do. I asked to speak to Mr. John Andersons supervisor, which is Father Gonzalez. I thought to my self, he would be more understanding and he would be kind enough to try and do something to help fix the situation. My daughter could have taken a test or something. Idk at least apologized for all the miss communication, something. Boy was I wrong. He was rude, un kind and inconsiderate. He didn't even let me explain the situation. Very rudely told me it was not going to happen. Blaming me for not reading the manual, pretty much telling me it was my fault. He made me feel stupid and never even acknowledged the mistakes his staff had done. And the suffering he and his staff cause my poor daughter.

I do take some of the blame for not questioning the ceremony more or asking for more details. I just lost my father last month so it's been difficult to keep up with everything. But I truly believed we would have be informed towards the end of classes and closer to the ceremony date. Because I was informed the details at the beginning.

I just wished they would have handled it better. And if they would have just told me from the first time that she wasn't going to have her ceremony instead of getting my daughter's hopes up to just take that away from her again.

I hope this doesn't happened to anybody else. It's devastating and heart breaking. We've been preparing for this day since last...

If I could give zero or negative 5 star, I would, for ruining my wedding. And below is why:

My fiance and I asked for the availability of our wedding date and time a month ago, and we were told the date and time were available. So, we went to the information night and followed up the very next day with the event manager Luci Santos to set a meeting to lock the date/time. She postponed our meeting 4~5 times, and finally cancelled our meeting last minute and didn't get back to us till another week later. Today, a month passed by from the initial contact, my fiance finally got hold of her again, and she told us the date/time was booked. We were shocked and asked her how that could happen since we were told by her a month earlier that the date/time was still available, especially she was the one kept postponing and cancelling our meetings for a month. Then she said that the slot was booked last November. Does it mean she lied to us at the beginning when we asked her several times if the date/time was available? I specifically remember after a few postpones I wanted to confirm again if the date/time was still available. She put me on hold, and then told me yes. Was she lying then again as well? I guess the time we took off from work to attend the information night is wasted and also the least of her concerns.

Not to mention the entire process of dealing with her is painful since it was extremely hard to get hold of her and get her to commit to a meeting, considering I'm a very patient person according to many others. I almost felt that it was because I'm a non-Catholic Chinese so she didn't want my fiance who's a Catholic and I to get married there so she made the process really hard so we could back out ourselves. And then she finally just made our date/time unavailable to leave us no choice but not to get married there.

Our wedding is at the beginning of January. Now we have wasted the valuable one month without looking elsewhere, and anyone who has planned a wedding will know how precious the one month is! Especially we had thought the church would have our date/time, we had booked our reception venue, printed our save the date cards, and told our family and friends! We even have friends moved their air tickets just so they could be back in time to come to our wedding! As we can't change the date/time, and getting married in a Catholic church is extremely important to my fiance's family, we will have to start the church search from the beginning when the wedding is less than 6 months away! We didn't go to any other churches as St. Andrew was the first one we visited and we never tried another one after we decided to get married there. Not to mention we might not get a date/time that we wanted now even from another church because it's so late. Basically, WE ARE SCREWED!

For what we are willing to pay ($3,200 for non-registered couples to use the facility for only 1 hour to 1.5 hours), we can't believe we experienced this.

Luci Santos, I will remember you forever for ruining the most important...

Hello, and thank you for your response.

I want to start by saying I truly meant no harm in sharing my review. I was surprised by the tone of the reply, as it felt like it assumed negative intent, and that was never the case. I began by expressing everything I love about the church, and I meant every word.

I chose not to go directly to the pastor or priests because I’ve had a previous meeting with Father Gonzalez about my sacraments. It was unrelated to my current concerns, but due to some miscommunication, I left the conversation feeling very emotional. I know he wasn’t trying to upset me, he was trying to resolve the issue, but it left me hesitant to initiate another conversation like that. That said, I’ve always appreciated Father Gonzalez and looked forward to Mass when he was presiding.

Your response made me feel a bit pressured to share more than I wanted to publicly. I kindly ask that future replies to feedback be approached with more gentleness. I say that with all respect.

I genuinely didn’t know about the children’s chapel. During my OCIA church tour, I wasn’t shown or made aware of it, perhaps it's in a different building? I’ve had difficult experiences at other churches due to my daughter’s disability, so I try very hard to sit where we’ll disturb others the least.

The room I referred to in my review was the one near the south end of the church, under the picture of Mary, which was sometimes announced for mothers to nurse or soothe children. I may have misunderstood its purpose, and I’m happy to be corrected. I only wish the correction had come with more kindness, in that case, I would’ve gladly updated my review.

Thank you again. I still care deeply for this church and hope to return when the time feels right.

Warmly, Isamar

Original Post: This is by far one of the most beautiful churches in Southern California. I had the privilege of finishing my sacraments with my husband here. OCIA was such a pleasure and I looked forward to it every week with John Anderson. The only reason I took off two stars is because this church is probably the most unwelcoming for families with small children. I have received some pretty dirty looks because of my daughter who has a disability and my baby who still makes noises during service. I tried going to the nursing room but it’s too cold/hot (the door is always open) and has no place to sit and is completely isolated from church. I can’t hear what’s going on if I’m in there with my child and don’t know when the Eucharist is being received. I don’t want to open the humongous door just to see what’s going on every few minutes. The last time I went there with my family, we all walked into the cry room and just left because there was nothing we could do in there. I love this church. I want to go back so badly, but I can’t. It’s not made for families with small children, let alone my daughter who has a disability. I’m writing this with the hope that someday things will...