ON THE PAPAL ROUTE : Pope Visits Them : ‘Lives Changed Forever’ for 21 Schoolchildren

At 3:11 p.m. Wednesday, the 11 boys and 10 girls seated in Room 7 of Immaculate Conception School abruptly stopped their nervous drumming of fingers and their fervent, last-minute prayers.

“He’s coming. He’s coming. He’s coming,” 12-year-old Herbert Barrios frantically whispered.

“Oh, my God,” gasped one of the girls.

All motion stopped. The parochial schoolchildren held their breath and, eyes wide, listened to the sounds of footsteps advancing up the stairs toward the second-floor classroom. It was now 3:12 p.m., and the footfall signalled what would be for these Roman Catholic schoolchildren an event that would, as the school principal had put it only minutes before, “change your lives forever.”

Here to See Them

The Pope was here--to see them, to lecture them, gently, about love and life and the importance of being good children, to answer a few of their oft-rehearsed questions and, just before he left, to embrace and kiss each one of them. Some even twice.

Nancy Reagan, the First Lady of the United States, walked in first. She would play a supporting role in this drama. She was followed by Pope John Paul II, and the moment his cream-colored cassock filled the classroom doorway, the students were out of their seats, at attention.

“Good af-ter-noooooon, Ho-ly Faaather,” they sang out in unison.

Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, the Pope’s escort during his two days in Los Angeles, told the children the obvious. “You are singularly blessed,” he said. The Pope playfully shot up his eyebrows at this, establishing eye contact with one of the young girls to his left.

The girl giggled.

She and the others had been chosen at the start of the school year. There were seven students each from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The boys wore blue shirts and corduroys. The girls wore red plaid jumpers, white blouses and saddle shoes. Some wore earrings for the special occasion. Nearly all wore buttons bearing the Pope’s likeness.

And now, as the First Lady and the Holy Father sat down in the two brown chairs that interrupted their circle of school desks, they also wore somber, important expressions.

Nancy Reagan spoke first, introducing the Pope as someone who had “great and serious things on his mind.”

The children tried to pay attention to her remarks, but they could not keep from glancing over at the man sitting beside her. Expressions of respectful thoughtfulness and bemusement alternately played across his face.

Now it was his turn.

“I have no speech prepared for you,” the Pope told them. He said he had visited a school once in Melbourne, Australia, a class of younger children, and helped them with their lessons.

“You know Australia?” he asked. Twenty-one heads bobbed up and down. They had passed their first lesson: geography.

“To be educated in the family,” he told them, “you must cooperate with your parents. To be educated in school, of course, you must be cooperative with your teacher.”

He locked his eyes on the principal, Mary Ann Murphy, 33, who stood in the back of the room, with the Secret Service. Her face was glowing.

“It seems your teacher is very satisfied with what I say to you,” he told the children, chuckling.

He spoke in a soft voice about the responsibilities of Christianity and about what is meant when the children’s catechism texts say that they are “created in the likeness of God.” The children remained motionless. Most of the young boys, as full of smart remarks and overabundant energy as any young boys during the long wait for the Pope to arrive, kept their hands folded together, as if in prayer.

After the Pope had spoken for about 10 minutes, Mahony leaned over and told him the children had prepared some questions for him.

“So,” John Paul deadpanned to Mahony, “I speak too much?”

The archbishop backed away with a flurry of bows.

The questions were neatly printed on 5-by-7-inch cards the children kept on their desks as a hedge against total memory loss in the excitement of the moment. The quality of questions had been one factor in Murphy’s selection of who among her 320 students would take part in the session in Room 7.

At first, 11-year-old David Cota was only brave one to raise his hand. “When you were younger, did you dream you would be head of the church?” he asked.

The Pope at first took the question literally, saying in his Polish accent that, no, “I do not remember a night when such a dream came to me.”

He explained how Popes are elected from the ranks of cardinals at the Vatican.

“I didn’t aspire to this election,” he said. “It should be so, because such elections, such occasions come from God.”

Hands Shoot Up

As his answer wound down, hands began to shoot up all around the circle.

“Now you are all courageous,” the Pope told his would-be inquisitors.

Carlos Lopez, 13, asked the Pope if he felt it was risky to visit.

“To visit you?” the Pope exclaimed. “No, no, no. You are good boys and girls.” He went on to say he had “great confidence in the citizens of the United States, and also in the security of the United States.”

‘Not Easy to Forgive’

Lorena Mull, 11, asked about forgiving enemies. And this Pope, who once met in private with a man who had tried to kill him and forgave him, conceded that “it is not so easy to forgive. Sometimes, John Paul said, even he had to pray in order to muster the courage to forgive someone.

He paused when he was finished. “A very interesting question,” he told Lorena, before he pointed at the next waving hand.

This would be the last question. It was asked by 13-year-old Millexal Albo. He who wanted to know what message the Pope would give the world so that there might be peace.

“Ooohhh,” John Paul exclaimed, “I am giving several messages.”

It was now 3:30 p.m., and the Pope was told that it was time to go. He looked dismayed. He asked the children to pass in their cards, promising to read their questions later when there was more time. He smiled as they refused to drop their hands, as if somehow he could be willed into staying longer.

An aide brought a tray of rosaries to the Pope. “I offer you a rosary every one,” he said. He presented the first to Nancy Reagan, a Presbyterian, and then worked slowly around the circle, giving each child a rosary and touching each head. When his turn came, Guido Nunez, 12, handed the Pope a rose.

Each child bowed to kiss the ring of the Pope. And about halfway through the circle, he began to return the kisses, embracing the children as he pressed his lips to their heads and cheeks.

“I’m racing,” he said regretfully as he reached the end of the line.

But he was not done.

“Who was the first to be kissed?” he asked, and then the Pope carefully worked his way back around the circuit to make sure each child had properly been given his affection.

The security men checked their watches.

And then five of the children lined up to escort the Pope out to the playground where the assembled student body was waiting.

“Goodby, goodby,” the Pope said, waving at those left behind.

Their faces revealed emotions that their vocabularies could not articulate, not at this grade level, and probably never.

Also contributing to The Times coverage of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Los Angeles were staff writers Stephen Braun, Stephanie Chavez, David Freed, Scott Harris, Kathleen Hendrix, Kirk Jackson, Robert A. Jones, Patricia Klein, Patrick McDonnell, Patt Morrison, Santiago O’Donnell, Lynn O’Shaughnessy, Judy Pasternak, George Ramos, Larry B. Stammer, Robert W. Stewart, Suzanne Tay, Curtis Taylor, Tracy Thomas and Ted Vollmer.