Mahony Will Speak at Bowl’s Sunrise Service

Archbishop Roger Mahony, a much-sought speaker by Los Angeles religious groups in his first year heading the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese, will deliver a brief sermon at the 66th annual Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise Service March 30.

Mahony, who also accepted an invitation to address more than 1,000 business leaders at the YMCA’s 28th annual Good Friday Breakfast March 28 at the Bonaventure, will be joined in the Bowl service program by a number of entertainment personalities, including singer Rosemary Clooney and actor Robert Guillaume.

The service will be televised this year, but by KDOC Channel 56, and not KTTV Channel 11. Ironically, KTTV received a Gold Angel award last month from Religion in Media for its coverage.

KTTV Executive Producer Ray Green said the costs of producing the program, which the station had absorbed, had risen to about $30,000 but that “there hasn’t been much of an audience.”

“We didn’t get many letters,” Green said, “and when we offered the program to satellite networks only two wanted it last year.”

However, KTTV announcer Bill Welch, a familiar voice at the sunrise service telecasts, was given permission to narrate the program for Channel 56, which will show it live and repeat it that night.

Stage producer Dick Sheehan, who is producing the sunrise service, said KDOC will not charge the Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise Service Committee for the telecast.

Meanwhile, organizers for the oldest outdoor Easter sunrise service in Southern California said the Mt. Rubidoux service in Riverside, first staged in 1909, will have the Rev. Earl Lee, who retired last year as longtime pastor at Pasadena First Nazarene Church, as the speaker.