100 prayers to see pope answered

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles serves three counties with an estimated Roman Catholic population of 4.3 million. So it didn’t take long to distribute the just over 100 tickets it was allotted for Masses to be said by Pope Benedict XVI when he visits the East Coast this month.

Among those who clamored for tickets is Helen Milan, 51, who says she is trying to make up for more than two decades as a lapsed Catholic. Raymond Fleck, 81, and his wife, Dorothy, 69, both retired academics, are inspired by Benedict’s studious, if often misunderstood, academic approach to theological questions.

And Sean McPherson, 24, a devout, lifelong Catholic, serendipitously had plans to be in New York during the pope’s visit. It was clearly meant to be, he said.

Almost as soon as Benedict’s first trip to the United States was announced in November, people were calling, writing and e-mailing for tickets to public Masses in Washington, D.C., and New York, said officials of the archdioceses in those areas. The pope will be in the U.S. April 15-20.

The Archdiocese of Washington got requests from as far away as Australia, Central America and Europe, said spokeswoman Susan Gibbs. In Los Angeles, the archdiocese in February was forced to post a note on its website asking people to stop requesting tickets because they were all gone.

Benedict will say Mass at Yankee Stadium for 45,000 people and at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., for about 57,000 people. Thousands of tickets, which are bar-coded and security-proofed to prevent counterfeiting, were distributed to dioceses across the country. The bulk went to parishes on the East Coast.

They were given out in a variety of ways. One East Coast pastor asked parishioners to write lengthy, personal petitions, explaining why they deserved to go. Another pulled names from a hat. Others raffled off tickets. In Los Angeles, it was as simple as possible: first-come, first-served.

Those who secured tickets had myriad motivations.

Milan knows she cannot walk up to the pope and ask for redemption. Nevertheless, redemption is what she’ll seek as one of the many thousands at the Mass in New York.

A faithful Catholic as a child, Milan spent two decades attending Protestant churches after moving to Los Angeles from the Philippines when she was 17. There is no clear reason why she drifted away from Catholicism, she said.

“I was just alienated. I was disappointed with the church.” When Pope John Paul II visited Los Angeles in 1987, attracting throngs of faithful admirers, Milan had no desire to see him. “I had no response,” she said. “It didn’t even click.”

Then, just before John Paul II died, she said, she had a revelation: She felt him praying for her. “The feeling was so strong -- I could feel it.” That she did not have a chance to see John Paul before he died was devastating. “I cried for days,” she said.

Since embracing Catholicism anew, Milan said she has attended Mass every day for four years. She works with church groups and is close to church leaders. Being at the pope’s Mass, she said, is just one more way, one more chance, to make up for her time away from the church.

For the Flecks, who spent their long careers in the halls of academia -- he a scientist, she a university administrator -- the motivation is both spiritual and academic.

The Flecks, who live in La Verne, say they feel compelled to hear the ideas and understand the logic of the man who, before becoming pope, was Joseph Ratzinger the academic.

“I’ve been rather fascinated by his approach,” Dorothy Fleck said. “I thought I was not going to be very happy because he had a reputation of being very conservative, and I’m not a very conservative Catholic.”

But after following his speeches and reading his books, she’s come around.

Benedict, more so than John Paul and other popes were, is equipped to handle the changing church because of his background as a scholar and intellect, said Raymond Fleck, who holds a doctorate in organic chemistry and is particularly fascinated by the pope’s statements on the intersection of science, philosophy and religion.

“He approaches things as an academic would, with reason,” Fleck said. “He’s pretty dogmatic about the traditional positions, but at the same time, I think he has the degree of flexibility that’s needed by the church.”

One of Benedict’s first stops will be to meet with President Bush at the White House. In New York he will make his first address to the U.N. General Assembly.

McPherson, a senior at Cal Poly Pomona, will be at the United Nations the day before for a model U.N. conference, a competition in which students simulate the role of foreign diplomats. He has spent months practicing, rehearsing and learning to represent Portugal.

The chance to see Benedict is “a rare opportunity to see a really prominent world leader,” he said. It’s interesting “even from a nonreligious standpoint. Even my friends [in model U.N.] are interested in seeing the pope.”

Still, he adds, seeing Benedict has spiritual significance.

“When I learned the pope was coming to town, and I was going to be in the city the same time, I thought it was a little more than coincidence.”

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paloma.esquivel@latimes.com