Papal Visit Update

A company contributing hundreds of vestments for next month’s papal Mass at Dodger Stadium is making a public appeal for strips of imported fabric, to be sewn onto the garments.

The aim is not to make the liturgical garb elegant but, rather, to signify the motif of the Sept. 16 event, according to Martinez & Murphey Vestmentmakers in Los Angeles.

Pope John Paul II and about 300 of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are to celebrate the varied ethnic and national origins of U.S. Catholics. Father Douglas Ferraro, the Los Angeles archdiocesan priest who is chairman for the Mass, said the company’s idea “will certainly contribute to the Mass’ theme of ‘Many Peoples, One Church.’ ”

The company has written to Catholic parishes asking for donations of fabric, produced in other countries, that measure at least four yards long by eight inches wide. The strips would be sewn as vertical bands on the chasubles, or outer garments, said Martinez & Murphey Chairman Richard G. Rock, whose company is also making embroidered miters for the bishops and the Pope.

“The bishops will be able to take the custom-made vestments and miters back to their home dioceses as a remembrance of their involvement in this historic event,” Rock said.

Rock said the fabric’s color must be compatible with the red chasubles and red stoles, the color chosen because Sept. 16 is the church’s feast day of the martyrs, according to Rock. He said the company, located at 725 S. Ceres Ave., is also welcoming contributions from non-Catholics.

The Los Angeles chapter of Dignity, the nationwide organization of homosexual Roman Catholics, has decided against staging any protests against the Pope and instead will welcome the pontiff to the city.

While not denying “the pain” of the strongly worded Vatican statement last October condemning homosexuality as “an objective disorder” and homosexual activity as immoral, the chapter recently approved plans for what chapter President Rafael Vega called “a mature response that would clearly be Gospel-based.”

Vega said the chapter plans to begin a three-day prayer and fasting vigil the night before the Pope arrives in Los Angeles. Members are to interrupt their vigil on the morning of Sept. 15 to watch the papal motorcade and hold a banner, written in the pontiff’s native Polish, welcoming the Pope.

“At a time when anger born of hopelessness could be our driving force, we try still to help create a better world, a better Church,” Vega wrote in the chapter’s newsletter.

Even in San Francisco, where the Pope faces protests from a coalition of homosexual-rights advocates, the local Dignity chapters will not be participating, said Thomas Carroll, Dignity’s regional director for California and Nevada. “All of our responses will be prayerful, positive and peaceful; it’s a chance for dialogue with the church,” Carroll said in a phone interview.

The Los Angeles group, unlike chapters in some other cities, has been able to use Catholic facilities in the archdiocese.

A profusely illustrated, 68-page booklet commemorating Pope John Paul II’s visit to Los Angeles next month will soon be available for sale in parishes, Catholic officials have announced.

Msgr. Francis Weber, editor of “The Holy Father in California’s Southland,” said the press run will consist of 350,000 copies. The booklet will sell for $5.

The booklet will be indispensable for the more than 150,000 Catholics who obtain tickets to the two papal Masses on Sept. 15 and 16. The middle pages, which can be removed, contain the only text and music that will be available for those going to the Masses, Weber said.

The longtime archivist and historian for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Weber wrote short articles on, among other subjects, the history of the missions in the Southland, Father Junipero Serra and the 1976 visit to Los Angeles by Karol Wojtyla, who took the name John Paul II when he was elected Pope in 1979.

In a letter to Los Angeles Cardinal Timothy Manning dated Nov. 20, 1980, the Pope wrote that he happily recalled his California trip. “How impressed I was by the many monuments to the faith that were planted there and elsewhere along El Camino Real by Fray Junipero Serra and his Franciscan collaborators,” the Pope wrote.