Big Day for Little School: Pope to Visit

Shortly after mid-morning recess Thursday, the public address system at Immaculate Conception School in downtown Los Angeles came to life with a burst of squeaks and scratches. The eight classrooms of uniformed pupils grew quiet, and a voice of omnipresent authority crackled through the two-story schoolhouse.

“May I have your attention please,” said the voice, which belonged to Principal Leonarda Vaquilar. “I would like to announce to you that Immaculate Conception School has been chosen”--here the principal paused dramatically--”for the Pope to visit in September.

“We are very happy we have been chosen. And we are very proud.”

The last of the broadcast was all but lost in an explosion of whoops and applause. There was no opportunity for Vaquilar to elaborate on her dazzling bulletin. The students were spared the details--that Pope John Paul II would arrive by helicopter at the school on Wednesday, Sept. 16; that he would parade past the student body of 300 first-through-eighth-graders; that he would converse informally for at least half an hour in Classroom 7 with an as-yet-unselected collection of 20 students.

Immaculate Conception was one of about half a dozen schools under consideration after the Vatican informed the Archdiocese of Los Angeles that the Pope intended to visit a typical parochial school midway through his nine-day tour of the United States.

The school’s selection was announced earlier Thursday by trip organizers, prompting a small horde of reporters to besiege the tiny schoolyard seeking reaction.

A major consideration in choosing Immaculate Conception had been logistics--the next stop on the Pope’s hurly-burly schedule is in Little Tokyo--and there were security concerns to be addressed as well.

White House officials have said that Nancy Reagan plans to accompany the Pope on the school visit, presumably to promote her “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign. Organizers of the Los Angeles portion of the papal journey could not confirm Thursday that the First Lady indeed would take part in the Immaculate Conception stop.

Immaculate Conception is at the corner of 8th Street and Green Avenue just west of downtown Los Angeles. Most of its students are Latino, and much of the instruction is conducted in Spanish. The overflowing classrooms are not air conditioned, and graffiti mars the basketball backboard on the school’s blacktop playground.

Father Greg King, a 39-year-old priest, who as pastor of the parish serves as chief administrator at the school, said that only a few repairs are planned over the summer. He did say a plaque would be placed in front of the school after the Pope departs.

“Basically,” he told reporters, “they wanted a typical inner-city school, and we’re pretty typical.”

What did King hope that the Pope might learn from his hour at the school?

“That we have youth in Los Angeles. That faith is alive, which is fantastic. That we are a very happy and a very joyful community.”

And the students--whose inability to articulate for reporters what they might ask the Pope prompted Vaquilar to assign the question to them as summer vacation homework--would they appreciate the historic opportunity to interact at close range with the leader of the Roman Catholic world?

King said they would appreciate it more later in life. On the actual day of the visit--well, he acknowledged, “I think they’ll be more interested in the helicopter.”