Pope’s Visit: A Tug of War : Church Leaders Vie for Extra Time, Attention

Organizers planning Pope John Paul II’s 10-day trip to nine U.S. cities this September wanted the pontiff to stay over in Phoenix for two nights in order to give him a little extra rest and less hectic schedule.

But they had not reckoned with the bishops of Texas.

Now, the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church will spend a night in San Antonio--after a day of activity there--and only one night in Phoenix.

“The Texas bishops wanted him overnight as a symbol of the state’s importance,” said Russell Shaw, the spokesman for the U.S. Catholic bishops. “The Texans said they deserved a little more than eight hours” originally scheduled.

The change may seem trivial, but it illustrates the intricacies and idiosyncrasies with which papal visit coordinators must contend.

The sheer size of the expected crowds, as well as the desire of the Pope to allow as many people as possible to attend the daily Masses he will celebrate in each city, have created other Texas-sized problems.

Planners in San Antonio were only recently able to find a suitable place big enough to hold up to three-quarters of a million people for a behemoth outdoor Mass.

Negotiations with the owners of a large unimproved property fell through unexpectedly in January when the archdiocese leaders learned the owners wanted $30 million of liability insurance--at a reported premium of $500,000. The fee was too steep for the church, a source close to the bargaining said.

But the story took a positive turn last week: Catholic officials said they have signed an agreement with two developers for the free use of another 140-acre parcel for the Sept. 13 event. Liability coverage for the new site is still being worked out, officials said.

Indeed, the logistics, protocol, money and security required for the variety of events John Paul will squeeze into the Sept. 10-19 visit--his 36th foreign trip as pontiff--is enough to stagger the abilities and imaginations of even the most seasoned planners.

Cautioned Shaw at a recent national briefing of media coordinators, Secret Service agents and papal advance men:

“The whole thing could come unglued at any one of a thousand points along the route.”

Conservatively, at least 10 million people are expected to personally see the pontiff during what may be the most-covered U.S. media event of 1987.

Sighed Father Jose Nickse, media coordinator for the Archdiocese of Miami, the Pope’s first stop: “To make everyone happy we need a front row that can seat a quarter-million people.”

But papal trip organizers have more than seating to worry about.

In Phoenix, the Arizona chapters of American Atheists plan to picket against the Pope, protesting the church’s use of taxpayer-funded facilities. In South Carolina, a fundamentalist Baptist association of 25,000 members is sponsoring anti-Pope billboards and has issued a resolution calling the pontiff “the man of sin” and “the Antichrist.”

In San Francisco, transvestites who dress up as nuns threaten to mock John Paul as his plexiglass-bubble-covered Mercedes “Popemobile” slowly wheels down Market Street, and gay activists plan alternative “teach-ins” to counter what they call repressive Vatican policies toward homosexuals.

And in Monterey, Catholic coordinators were accused of “selling the Pope” by proposing to auction off exclusive rights to live coverage of John Paul’s Mass at Laguna Seca Raceway in order to finance the event. The controversial idea was scrapped last week after disgruntled television station managers and some church leaders protested.

During the peripatetic Pope’s visit to Miami; Columbia, S.C.; New Orleans; San Antonio; Phoenix; Los Angeles; Monterey; San Francisco, and Detroit, John Paul will:

- Wave to millions along Pope-mobile routes on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, Canal Street in New Orleans and in four ethnic neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

- Give a major address on urban social issues to a million people assembled in downtown Detroit, and pray with the sick in a 500-bed Phoenix hospital.

- Meet with Protestant officials in South Carolina, talk with Jews in Miami and listen to Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist leaders in Los Angeles.

- Speak to fellow Poles in San Antonio and Detroit, hold a powwow with 15,000 Native American Indians in Phoenix, and converse in Spanish with Latinos in a San Antonio barrio.

- Sing along with 88,000 youth in a Superdome rally in New Orleans and interact with 6,000 young people in a televised video conference at Universal studios in Hollywood.

- Talk privately with President Reagan--probably in Los Angeles--shake hands with Carmel Mayor Clint Eastwood at the Monterey Airport, and hold a closed session with the 300 U.S. Catholic bishops at the Seminary of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels in San Fernando.

That does not count separate meetings and Masses with Catholic educators, charity and health-care workers, growers, farm workers, communications industry leaders, lay groups, deacons, priests, nuns and brothers.

In all, John Paul will give more than 40 talks.

All the while, planners are praying that the Pope will remain well, that the weather will cooperate, and that civil commotions, mechanical breakdowns or serious accidents won’t interfere.

And there is the delicate protocol that must be followed when a head of state who also happens to be the leader of the world’s largest religion makes a call on a country with diplomatic ties to the Vatican.

The Pope’s U.S. arrival in Miami and departure in Detroit will be handled according to government protocol and managed by the State Department.

“In 1979, when the Pope last came to the United States, he came as a ‘distinguished visitor,’ ” said Father Robert Lynch, the man responsible for overall coordination of the U.S. papal trips. “But now, in 1987, he’s a recognized head of state (representing) a nation the United States has diplomatic relations with. So his protection is a legitimate concern of this country.”

While security costs of the trip--no overall figures are yet available--will thus be borne by the U.S. government, the expense of providing facilities for the 20,000 media representatives who are expected to cover the Pope’s visit will be paid for by the national office of the U.S. Catholic Church. At the same time, each diocese must come up with local costs of the papal trip--estimated by Lynch to run from $500,000 to $2.5 million per stop--a total of $13 to $18 million.

Rental fees and other costs for meeting facilities and Mass sites will come from church coffers and generous benefactors--not public funds.

The Pope’s meetings with government figures are being downplayed in a protocol tightrope act designed to neither harm U.S.-Vatican diplomatic relations, nor allow political leaders a tempting opportunity to capitalize on the enormous audiences and popular interest papal visits generate.

The Pope will not share the platform with civic leaders at any of his official meetings, and no politician will be permitted to speechify during any papal program, according to spokesman Shaw.

But Vice President George Bush or perhaps First Lady Nancy Reagan will take part in the Pope’s send-off back to Rome, said Jay Berman, communications director for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Archbishop Pio Laghi, the Apostolic Pro Nuncio who is the papal representative to the United States, is the official liaison between the Vatican and the State Department and matters of diplomatic relations are cleared through him, Shaw and Lynch said.

Although letters inviting the Pope to this country were extended by both President and Nancy Reagan and some other government leaders, John Paul is coming to the United States as the spiritual leader of the nation’s 53 million Roman Catholics, and by invitation of specific dioceses, Lynch said. Thus, John Paul’s meetings with mayors, governors and federal leaders, when they do occur, will be brief. Usually, they will take place at the airport when he arrives or departs--or in private, like the expected meeting with Reagan.

Papal planners are bending over backwards to avoid offending fragile sensitivities of ecumenical leaders who will meet with the Pope on three occasions.

In Miami, where John Paul will speak and pray with several hundred national and local Jewish leaders--who may raise the volatile issue of why the Vatican refuses to recognize the state of Israel--representative Jewish organizations have been asked to determine who will be invited.

The same procedure is being followed in Los Angeles, where about 400 local leaders, equally divided from the Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic faiths, will meet with John Paul in the Japanese Cultural Center on Sept. 16.

For the Pope’s South Carolina dialogue and prayer service with Protestant and Greek Orthodox leaders, the 25 participating churchmen will be selected by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops from denominations with which the Roman Catholic Church has been in dialogue since the Second Vatican Council.

The papal planners must adhere to complex planning and strike delicate compromises if the papal trip is to come off without major glitches.

In New Orleans, for example, the 88,000 youths jammed in the Superdome for a noon rally must clear out in time for a 7:30 p.m. Tulane University football game kickoff. The huge circular stage must be taken down and the 10,000 folding chairs set up on the dome’s “Mardi-Grass” artificial turf playing field removed.

Another Superdome problem: How to make use of every inch of the cavernous structure. The indoor stadium has 64 “luxury boxes,” or suites, each of which contains seats for 40 people in glassed-in privacy. The boxes are leased annually for about $20,000 each for the exclusive use of the lessees, and thus would be unavailable for the Pope’s youth rally.

But planners hit upon a hard-to-refuse idea: have New Orleans Archbishop Philip M. Hannan write the box holders, asking them to allow free use of their suites, which are accessible by elevators, to the city’s elderly and handicapped so they can watch the youth assembly.

With the papal visit still more than six months away, other hard decisions have already been made, and there are “winners and losers” in the high-stakes drama of who “gets the Pope.”

For example, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was chosen over the Pasadena Rose Bowl for the Sept. 15 papal Mass because of its central location, size and full-color video screen, according to planners, although city officials in Pasadena lobbied hard for the Rose Bowl. The one-day Coliseum rental fee is $125,000.

The dioceses of Tucson and Santa Fe--with large number of Catholic Latinos and Native Americans--invited the Pope to come. But, when papal advance men checked out the cities’ airports, both were found to be too small to handle the expected air traffic and crowds.

So Phoenix’s invitation was accepted.

Wyoming also wanted the Pope “very badly . . . everyone from the governor on down would give their eye teeth to have him come,” Shaw said. “But logistically, and because of the distance, it couldn’t be done.”

Controlling the massive crowds expected in each city is giving fits to the platoons of U.S. Secret Service agents charged with protecting John Paul.

Caution is understandable. The Pope was shot and wounded by a Turkish terrorist in 1981, and a year later a priest attempted to stab him with a bayonet in Portugal. In his visit to Australia last November a former mental patient carrying Molotov cocktails was charged with threatening the Pope’s life.

In order to discourage Mass-crashers at the Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, papal planners are using counterfeit-proof machines to print up 104,000 tickets for the expected crowd--four times the largest previous gathering there, a Beach Boys concert held several years ago.

Although the Vatican won’t permit any official licensing or franchising of products or souvenirs on papal trips, plenty of entrepreneurs would like to benefit from the papal pull.

“I’ve had calls from at least six restaurants who want to feed the Pope” in New Orleans, said coordinator Thomas Finney.

Catholic television officials plan to cover the Pope’s Texas visit from start to finish by satellite transmission, with some cameras mounted high above the crowds--courtesy of the Texas Sea World blimp.

Because the costs of the papal trip fall heavily on the local parishes and dioceses where he comes, most plan special collection appeals, fund-raising events and solicitations of major gifts from both corporations and individuals.

In Los Angeles, planners are relying heavily on thousands of volunteer workers for construction of platforms, for ushering and for crowd control.

“You can bet we won’t build a million-dollar altar,” said Archbishop Roger Mahony, who estimated local costs for the Los Angeles leg of the papal trip to be about $1 million. Others privately predict twice that much.

Of all the stops, San Francisco is the one with the greatest potential for trouble. There are strong objections by the gay community to a statement issued by the Vatican last October that directs church leaders not to cooperate with groups that condone homosexual behavior.

When the millions of dollars have been spent and the millions of people return home--will it have been worth it to the church?

Wherever the Pope goes, there’s an increase in young men going into the priesthood, says Lynch, the overall coordinator of the 1987 visit.

More than that, he said in an interview, “An enormous number of Catholic people are thrilled. Talk about cost--you couldn’t buy the attention, the coverage, the significance that his presence brings, even with what we end up paying for it.”