Graham Finale Attracts 80,600 : Evangelist’s Crusade Drew 536,000 in 10 Days

Evangelist Billy Graham, on the mend with “pretty painful” cracked ribs, Sunday night ended his 10-day Southern California crusade by drawing an overflow crowd of 80,600 people to Anaheim Stadium.

The final-night crowd, which spilled onto the outfield grass, was the largest in the nearly 20-year history of the stadium, officials said. The previous record was 72,000 for a concert by the rock group Foreigner in 1982.

The cumulative attendance for what is probably Graham’s last Southern California crusade easily exceeded the 500,000 goal local organizers had set. The 10-day total was 536,000.

This fifth Graham crusade in Southern California exceeded the attendance of 384,000 he drew in 10 days at a smaller-capacity Anaheim Stadium in 1969. Even the present 67,500-seat home of the California Angels and Los Angeles Rams did not afford Graham the chance to better his high mark of 135,254 for one day’s attendance, set in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1963.

For Graham, 66, this crusade was more physically trying than most. He said Sunday in an interview that three ribs he cracked in a bathtub fall a few weeks ago still hurt “pretty badly.”

Graham said he did not take any pain-relieving medication, other than aspirin, for fear that it would “take the edge off my preaching.” He also said that because of his discomfort, he skipped a church service in Newport Beach that he had planned to attend Sunday morning.

Response of the Young

Graham indicated that he is pleased with the Anaheim crusade’s turnout of various ethnic groups (who could hear translations in 13 languages) and large numbers of young people. “I think there is a spiritual hunger today among young people that there wasn’t before,” he said.

The only shortcoming during the crusade was the apparently unprecedented refusal of the Roman Catholic Church to participate officially in the ongoing counseling of “inquirers,” those who come forward at the climax of each evening to dedicate themselves to Christ.

The evangelist downplayed the significance of the lack of official Catholic cooperation on the counseling of “inquirers”--about 6% of each night’s crowd who responded to Graham’s invitation to commit, or recommit, their lives spiritually. Graham said he was aware of individual Catholics who were involved in the crusade’s volunteer counseling staff.

However, Charlie Riggs, director of the Graham crusade counseling programs since 1957, said this crusade was the “first one I can remember . . . where we haven’t had any cooperation at all.”

Position of Bishops

Riggs said that Auxiliary Bishops John Ward and John Steinbock of the Los Angeles and Orange dioceses respectively were cordial when invited to participate in the crusade, but they said the parishes have their own renewal program under way. Attempts to reach Catholic officials for comment Sunday were unsuccessful.

Riggs said the bishops declined to put crusade officials in touch with Catholic charismatic renewal or Cursillo (Latino prayer fellowship) groups to arrange follow-up counseling and Bible study meetings for inquirers who say they are Catholics.

The Catholic counselors are trained to use the crusade materials in nurture groups and in follow-up calls to inquirers, Riggs said. He added that Catholic cooperation has been enthusiastic in recent crusades, such as those in Hartford, Conn., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this year and in Sacramento in 1983. In Sacramento, the local bishop even came forward and went to a follow-up study session, he said.

The long-standing crusade policy of not referring Catholics to Protestant churches was still followed in the Anaheim crusade, Riggs said.

Appeal to Latinos

Catholic leaders across the country have declared themselves disturbed about the loss of Catholic-born Latinos to aggressive Protestant and sectarian churches, notably Pentecostal, Baptist, Seventh-Day Adventist and Mormon churches and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces, N.M., recently urged fellow Catholics to adopt a “missionary mode” and give Latinos the kind of warm, personal attention that smaller fundamentalist churches often seem to offer.

Even though the Anaheim crowds averaged 50,000 per night, the well-honed crusade service gave listeners an intimate feel, with a folksy, smiling call for repentance and salvation.

Graham’s sermon is typically replete with anecdotes of his encounters with well-known figures, told in his soft North Carolina accent, but he nevertheless comes around to saying that the choice of humans is either heaven or hell.