What Pope’s Visit to L.A. Is All About

When the future Pope John Paul II visited Los Angeles 11 years ago, he got to do a little leisurely sightseeing, going to Marineland, Griffith Park and Forest Lawn. But then, he was only a Polish cardinal.

No time for any of that on Tuesday and Wednesday: The Southland schedule of the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church has been laid out to the last minute as he segues from event to event in a whirlwind of meticulously planned appearances.

The Pope’s agenda encompasses spectacular Masses, an unusual interfaith dialogue and an important private meeting with restive American bishops. And millions in the city will have their lives brightened--or disrupted--by a parade, the only event that does not require a ticket or an invitation.

John Paul will not only be extremely busy in the City of the Angels, his presence will represent a number of “firsts,” “mosts” and “onlys.”

For starters, it will be the first time a Pope has set foot in California. And Los Angeles is where the Pope:

Stays the longest during his 10-day U.S. tour--46 1/2 hours.

Has the longest parade--7.2 miles.

Holds the most events--12.

Also, Los Angeles is the only city on the trip where the Pope:

Holds two large-scale Masses--at the Coliseum and at Dodger Stadium.

Meets with the U.S. Catholic hierarchy--a private talk with 320 prelates.

Concelebrates Mass with all the U.S. bishops--at Dodger Stadium.

Speaks to an audience of influential secular leaders--communications executives.

Visits a parochial school and talks to students--Immaculate Conception.

Engages in dialogues with leaders of four non-Christian religions--Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu.

When the leader of the world’s 850 million Roman Catholics deplanes Tuesday morning at Los Angeles International Airport on the sixth day of his journey, he will step into the nation’s largest archdiocese--2.6 million members. It is also the one with the largest concentration of Latinos, which has been estimated as high as 65%.

The city’s huge population of minority groups will be a top concern for John Paul: Ethnic diversity, communications and non-Christian religions are the three themes he will highlight here.

‘Affirm the Welcome’

“I think the focus of the Pope will be very much to affirm the welcome of the Hispanic community into the full life of the church,” said Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony. “It will be a very prominent theme that you’ll find virtually throughout” his visit.

“I intend to pick up on the Pope’s challenges and say to our people, ‘Hey, this is what the Pope wants us to do, folks.’ ”

Papal visit planners in Los Angeles have been at work nearly two years arranging a minute-by-minute schedule. More than two dozen committees have been reporting to the archbishop through Walter McGuire, a San Francisco consultant who was the advance man for the Carter Administration and who organized the 1984 Olympic torch relay.

And there is a volunteer cast of hundreds.

“At the first meeting, 500 showed up,” Mahony said recently. “They do everything from manning the different checkpoints to driving, to escorting, to making sure the press gets to the various press platforms. . . . People out there want to get into this.”

Mahony has set a ceiling of $3 million on the church’s share of the Los Angeles leg of the trip. The funds are being raised through parish collections, and gifts from individuals and from several wealthy foundations.

The Pope’s sweep of the Southland will begin with little fanfare. A closed limousine will speed John Paul to a fire station, where he will transfer into the bulletproof Popemobile for a procession at parade speed through Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo and the downtown business district.

The motorcade, scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., will start from the Western Avenue off-ramp of the Santa Monica Freeway and--if John Paul stays on schedule--will end 45 minutes later at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral downtown.

Accompanied by Host

By tradition the host bishop stands beside the Pope in the rear of the Popemobile, but Mahony has said that because he is “quite a bit taller than the Pope,” he wants to sit so he will not block people’s view.

“I mean, they can see me any time they want,” the archbishop said in a recent interview, “and I really think they should have a chance to see him.”

The Pope will see a kaleidoscope of banners, musical groups and uniformed parochial schoolchildren along the route. Most of the archdiocese’s 284 parishes are planning to bus contingents to points along the way.

The Pope will be greeted at the cathedral door by the pastor, Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, and will conduct a 30-minute prayer service attended by bishops and local and state government officials.

St. Vibiana’s has been spruced up for the occasion, streets in the surrounding Skid Row area will be cleared before the Pope arrives, and transients will be kept away until after he leaves Thursday. Because of security provisions imposed by the Secret Service, food and other services for the transients who usually line the sidewalks around the Union Rescue Mission, next door to the cathedral, will be provided elsewhere.

Satellite Link

After lunch in the cathedral rectory, the Pope will take a helicopter to the Universal Amphitheater for a youth rally. Billed as “Papal Spacebridge ‘87,” it will link 6,000 young California Catholics assembled in the amphitheater with a total of 6,000 more gathered in Denver, St. Louis and Portland, Ore., via two-way television satellite.

The format calls for the Pope to first pray with the groups, ages 15 to 25, address them, listen to their questions and respond. Each group will also present the pontiff with a symbolic gift.

“It could be a song, it could be a dance, it could be a project that they’re involved in with the poor, for the homeless,” said Father Liam Kidney, the event’s organizer. He added that the Pope will know in advance the questions asked by the youth but he will not give scripted answers.

Next, the Pope is scheduled to address 1,500 national representatives from the print media, television, radio and the recording and motion picture industries at the adjacent Registry Hotel.

100,000 at Coliseum

Immediately afterward, the Pope will take his helicopter to USCnearby Memorial Coliseum for a Mass that will be celebrated in English and Spanish.

The crowd of 100,000 expected to jam the stadium will already have been in their seats for at least two hours, and the Pope will have missed the 90-minute opening ceremonies featuring opera, choirs, song and dance.

During Mass, the Pope will distribute Communion to 100 people selected to represent a cross section of participating dioceses, and 22 musical pieces--some written especially for the Mass--will be performed.

Session With Bishops

John Paul’s schedule on Wednesday is to begin early. After breakfast with Mahony and a few close associates, he will helicopter to Our Lady Queen of the Angels Seminary in Mission Hills, arriving by 9 a.m. for a meeting with 320 U.S. bishops that will consume much of the day. Controversial topics the pontiff is expected to address before the hierarchy here include personal and social morality, obedience to church authority, the role of women, the priesthood and church vocations, and relations between the U.S. Catholic Church and the Vatican.

After an informal lunch with the bishops in the mission garden, which Mahony said will include a little “just leisurely strolling-about time,” the Pope, accompanied by First Lady Nancy Reagan, has an afternoon appointment at Immaculate Conception Elementary School at 8th and Green streets in downtown Los Angeles, where he will talk to selected students.

‘Structured Dialogue’

He is due next at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo for a meeting with local non-Christian religious leaders.

About 800 invited guests, including 100 representatives each of the Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu faiths, will take part in the hourlong “structured dialogue.”

The speakers, in addition to the Pope, are to be Rabbi Alfred Wolf, past president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California; Havanpola Ratanasara of the Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California; Dr. Maher Hathout of the Islamic Center of Southern California and Swami Swahananda, of the Vedanta (Hindu) Society of Southern California. Rinban Gyoko Saito, bishop of the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple, is to welcome the Pope.

While the meeting with non-Christians is going on, a crowd of about 60,000 will be watching a pre-Mass pageant at Dodger Stadium. The ceremony--which promises to inject a little Hollywood into the religious pageantry--is planned to end just as the Pope arrives by helicopter for a 6:15 p.m. entrance.

The 90-minute festival preceding the Mass will feature special effects and religious testimony from celebrities. The event is produced by Lucille Walker, whose late husband, Tommy, produced such spectaculars as the 1984 Summer Olympics opening and closing ceremonies and New York’s Liberty Weekend celebration.

Walker said the show will feature a 300-member youth choir that will sing and decorate the altar, which is to be in center field facing home plate. Actor Ricardo Montalban will be master of ceremonies, and performer Ann Jillian will sing. Performances by ethnic groups representing Japan, Vietnam, Croatia, Mexico, Ireland, Scotland and Poland--as well as Aztecs and Latinos--will be included.

Ethnic Diversity

The theme of the Mass is the ethnic diversity in the Catholic Church of Southern California; about two dozen languages will be used during the rite. The Pope and the bishops, who will celebrate Mass with him, will wear red vestments, honoring the feast day of Sts. Cornelius and Cyprian, martyrs of the early church.

“The procession of 320 U.S. bishops into the stadium will be one of the most powerful and visually exciting elements of the celebration,” said Father Vivian Ben Lima, liturgical designer for the event.

Mahony pointed to the Dodger Stadium homily as a high point of the pontiff’s Los Angeles stay. Noting that the audience will represent a large slice of the area’s diverse ethnic communities, Mahony said:

“He’s very, very interested in the diversity of peoples . . . immigrants and refugees. . . . I think his . . . message will touch very, very pointedly on . . . our responsibility to these people.”

Bright and early Thursday morning, the pontiff will bid farewell to Los Angeles. The papal chopper will fly from the Civic Center area to Los Angeles International Airport. From there, the Pope and his entourage are to leave for Monterey.