A Miracle: No One Wants Papal Profits

A typically gregarious Los Angeles ticket broker, usually anxious to flaunt his access to hard-to-get tickets, shuddered into the telephone the other day in response to a simple question: Are you selling tickets to Pope John Paul II’s Southern California Masses?

“I’m not even going to talk about selling tickets to the Pope,” he said before hanging up.

Not for six weeks does the Pope set foot in Southern California, but some might say there already is evidence of miracles.

Local ticket brokers, normally ready to sell tickets--at huge price mark-ups--to every event in Southern California, are with few exceptions distancing themselves from the Pope’s visit. Worried about ticket supplies and fearful of the adverse publicity associated with financial gain from a religious event, ticket brokers in other cities the Pope will visit are likewise keeping an uncharacteristically low profile. Most say they either awill not sell tickets or--if they do--will donate any profits to charity.

“We’ve been in business 13 years now and I can’t think of another event, even cultural events . . . that we’ve decided not to get involved in,” said Brian Harlig, whose three-outlet Good Time Tickets agency will not sell tickets to the Pope’s Masses at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Dodger Stadium on Sept. 15 and 16, respectively.

“The Pope has got to be considered the Super Bowl of religion,” said Fred Ross, the effusive owner of Front Row Center tickets. “(But) this is a religious event. This is not a football game. It’s not a spectacle like the Olympics. I don’t think we should be involved in it.”

The brokers’ reluctance has buoyed the confidence of papal tour coordinators, who want the sought-after tickets to end up in the hands of the people intended to get them--rank-and-file Catholics.

The tickets are to be dispensed free through local parishes, and diocesan officials are keeping secret the details of design, printing and distribution in an effort to staunch scalping and counterfeiting.

So far, demand has swamped supply, but parishioners seem to have taken in stride the long-shot odds of getting a ticket. So tight is space that even Los Angeles’ Our Lady of the Bright Mount, a parish consisting mostly of members who share the same Polish background as John Paul II, received only 50 tickets.

“We have to make it go,” a parish volunteer, Maran Pawlikowski, said good-naturedly. “We could only get so many.”

From the beginning, papal planners in Los Angeles faced special problems stemming from the sheer concentration of Roman Catholics in Southern California.

In Columbia, S.C., an early stop on John Paul’s tour, organizers simply told those interested in attending the Pope’s ecumenical service to write them a letter. By late July, requests for 70,000 tickets had poured in, within range of the 62,000 that can be accommodated in Williams-Brice Stadium.

In Northern California, some parishes offered tickets to the Pope’s Masses in Monterey and San Francisco turned back part of their allocations because of light demand. Church officials there said they may give left-over tickets to those on a 4,000-person waiting list, comprised largely of Southern California residents.

But in Southern California, simple mathematics dictated that tickets would be in stunningly short supply. The archdiocese, which covers Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, is the nation’s most populous, with 2.65 million Catholics. Attendance at the Dodger Stadium Mass will be limited to 70,000; the Coliseum Mass will be seen by 100,000. (The arenas have 56,000 and 92,516 permanent seats, respectively, and additional guests will be seated on the grassy floors.)

The mammoth discrepancy has led diocese officials to encourage those wishing to see the Pope to show up for his Sept. 15 arrival motorcade, in which he will tour various neighborhoods of Los Angeles in his specially designed Popemobile.

Other Diocese

“The (public) events going on really have limited attendance,” said archdiocesan spokesman Father Joseph Battaglia. “We’re hoping a lot of people will be able to attend the motorcade and see him that way.”

Further limiting local tickets is the broad geographic area to be represented at the Los Angeles Masses. Tickets for the two Los Angeles Masses also were set aside for dioceses in Orange, San Diego and Fresno counties and Nevada.

A small number of the local tickets were held back by the archdiocese for use by the papal party, Mass officials and news reporters, Battaglia said. Tickets were not set aside for politicians or business leaders or even archdiocese-affiliated groups, he said.

State and local politicians, including some prominent Catholics, said through aides that they have been invited to a special reception at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral on Sept. 15 but had not been offered tickets to either Mass. Directors of several Catholic groups said they, too, are without tickets. Luke Fishburn, executive director of Catholic Big Brothers Inc., was among them.

“I think I’ll get a better seat in front of my TV,” Fishburn said.

The remaining tickets were alloted to parishes according to their size, archdiocese officials said. While Our Lady of the Bright Mount was allocated about 50 tickets, larger parishes like St. Lucy’s in City Terrace received more than 600 tickets, representatives there said.

Dispensed by Lottery

In an effort to quash debate over who gets tickets, Los Angeles planners strongly suggested that the archdiocese’s 283 parishes dispense the tickets by lottery. Most concurred, according to parish officials, although many culled some tickets out of their allotment to give to particularly involved parishioners.

In the weeks since local parishes conducted their lotteries, only a scattering of winners have changed their minds about attending, parish officials said.

The expectation that holders will hang on to their tickets is one reason most ticket brokers will sit this one out. Another is fear that their image, never the best, could suffer further if they make a profit on a free religious event.

“Most of the other major competitors and major brokers in town already have expressed some concern that they don’t want to deal in tickets and they think it’s ill-advised,” said Ross, owner of Front Row Center tickets. “We already have a serious enough problem in communicating to the public and legislators and the media. . . . This is just the type of event we can do well without.”

Although Front Row Center will not solicit tickets or advertise as a source of Pope tickets, Ross conceded that if long-time clients ask him for tickets--and he can obtain them free--he will pass them on--free.

“We’re not in it for the money,” he said.

No Offers Expected

Several other ticket brokers say they have not yet heard from prospective ticket sellers--and do not expect to hear from many.

“If somebody’s priest gave them two tickets, I don’t think they’d turn around and sell them for profit,” said Bill Perry of Pasadena Ticket Agency.

Brokers in other cities along the Pope’s route also expressed discomfort at both the market realities and the public relations problems involved in selling the Pope.

“It’s sort of sacrilegious to sell tickets to the Pope,” said Richard Jacobson of Jax Tickets in San Francisco. Jacobson added he has not sensed much demand. “The Pope is not really your Vegas crowd,” he explained.

Not all agencies agree. Murray’s, the veteran ticket agency with eight offices--including some in Los Angeles and San Francisco, two cities on the Pope’s itinerary--hopes to sell tickets. But Ken Solke, general manager of Murray’s Coliseum-area main office, said any profits would be turned over to charity.

“We’re getting requests in all our offices,” he said.

Solke said Murray’s has “commitments” from ticket holders who will turn over their tickets when they receive them. Most are asking $100 to $150 per ticket, he said.

Once in a Lifetime

“The ticket business is built and survives on making money,” he said. “We’ve built a reputation. This is one of those hard-to-get tickets. It’s sort of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

The Los Angeles archdiocese is going out of its way, however, to make things tough for potential ticket-sellers, whether individuals or agencies.

Although other dioceses are openly discussing their ticket designs--the South Carolina tickets will be green, with the outline of the state and a picture of the Pope superimposed--plans for the Los Angeles tickets are secret, said Father Terrance Fleming, in charge of planning the archdiocese’s ticket disbursement.

“I’m not telling you anything,” he said. “We’re keeping things very close.”

Neither would he discuss when and where the tickets will be printed.

Tickets will be turned over to pastors late this month, but the recipients will only receive their tickets “as close to the event as possible,” Battaglia said. Asked whether tickets would be disbursed only hours before the Masses--as San Francisco planners have discussed--he smiled: “It’s safe to assume that.”

Most parishioners will get to the Masses on parish-arranged buses and will sit in parish groups in the Coliseum or Dodger Stadium. Both moves are meant to simplify traffic and logistical concerns; they also will serve to make it more difficult for non-parishioners to blend into the crowd.

Given its precautions, Battaglia said, the archdiocese is confident that ticketing problems will be slight.