Pope to Distribute Communion to 200 at Two Festive L.A. Ceremonies

During each of two elaborate and intricately timed Masses in Los Angeles, Pope John Paul II will personally distribute Communion to 100 people selected to represent a cross-section of ethnically diverse Roman Catholicism in Southern California, officials of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said Friday.

So precise is the schedule for ceremonies in Memorial Coliseum on Sept. 15 and in Dodger Stadium the next night that the Communion portion of the services must be completed in no more than 18 minutes, two priests planning the events said at a news conference.

About 100,000 people are expected to attend the Mass at the Coliseum and 57,000 at Dodger Stadium. Most of the admission tickets are being distributed through individual parishes in Southern California. Both Masses will be televised locally.

The faithful will begin filling the outdoor stadiums as long as six hours before the Masses begin, according to Fathers Arthur Holquin and Douglas Ferraro, who are in charge of the ceremonies.

The Pope will spend 46 hours in Los Angeles, beginning on the morning of Sept. 15, during a nine-city tour of the United States. The visit will start in Miami on Sept. 10 and end in Detroit nine days later.

Fanfare and original music--even some poetry written by the Pope--will mark the celebration in the Coliseum. And there will be reminders of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Summer Games of 1984, such as releasing doves and using Olympics colors.

‘Sense of Solidarity’

Holquin, a priest of the Diocese of Orange, noted that the Mass will have a “festive character” and “sense of solidarity. . . . The assembly gathers there not just as idle spectators . . . but as active participants.”

Holquin added that “some Olympics colors, such as teal blue, are going to be highlighted, as well as the papal colors of gold, amber, yellow and white.”

Beige and off-white vestments of silk and wool for the 729 priests and deacons who will distribute communion at the Coliseum have already been made by the Benedictine Sisters in Rome, Ferraro said. Vestments and a miter (pointed headdress) for the Pope to wear at the Masses, as well as the stoles to be worn by priests, will be crafted in Los Angeles by sisters of the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master, he added.

The vestments will reflect “noble simplicity,” the priest said.

The Mass in Dodger Stadium will be the only one attended by the nation’s Catholic bishops as a group. The 250 prelates will hold a private meeting with the pontiff that morning at Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary in San Fernando.

During each Mass, the Pope will distribute Communion to 100 people “selected by their representative bishops with the goal of pulling together a proportionate cross-section from each diocese,” Holquin said at the press conference. “Criteria for selections included race, age, sex, leadership position and vocational status.”

Ferraro, who serves the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said those planning the Masses were “very sensitive” to the need to “highlight laity” in the ceremonies and that women were chosen to read the Scriptures at the Coliseum.

Preceding the Coliseum Mass, a 75-minute concert will bring together opera, choir, song and dance. Gospel singer Sandi Patti, recording star Deneice Williams and New York Metropolitan Opera tenor Placido Domingo will perform, officials said, and actor Joseph Campanella is to deliver a narration. Former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby and her husband, Tom McCoy, are producers of the event.

Doves to Be Freed

The concert will climax with choir, chorale, orchestra, performers and 50 trumpeters rendering “The Hallelujah Chorus.” Then, 500 white doves are to be released “in a gesture of peace and good will,” according to Father Joseph Battaglia, press spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Quipped Ferraro, “We’re going to do the same thing (the next night) at Dodger Stadium if we find the doves again.”