St. Vibiana’s: After the Pope, a Return to Normalcy

On the Sunday morning after Pope John Paul II left the United States, panhandlers once again slouched outside the doors of St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, self-appointed sentries on the lookout for loose change. Once again, the sidewalk had to be hosed down before the 9 a.m. Mass, a measure against the foul-smelling flotsam of nocturnal winos. And inside, rows of pews intended to seat 1,200 worshipers were, once again, largely vacant.

For 48 hours last week, the cathedral and its rectory had served as John Paul’s Los Angeles headquarters. The Pope on Tuesday and Wednesday had slept in the archbishop’s bed, dined on food prepared in the rectory kitchen, prayed before an uncommon packed house.

It had been a glorious interlude, but quickly the church was returning to its more familiar role of Skid Row sanctuary. In this return, one sensed, there was a measure of pride among the parishioners, the priests and their helpmates--a family that the church bulletin even Sunday referred to as “we precious few.”

“Our little Cathedral is starting to get back to normal,” said 37-year-old David Sutton, who serves as the church office manager and Sunday cantor. “The poor of the streets are starting to creep back in, to ask the fathers if they have a dollar to spare.”

There were, of course, some mementos of the Pope’s stay. A few could be seen. The rest had to be felt.

The altar was adorned with magnificent sprays of yellow and white flowers--the papal colors, as all of Los Angeles by now must know--left over from the visit. They did not yet show any signs of wilting. The parquet floor still held its sheen. A portable toilet stood in the church garden; tape stripped across its door bore the Spanish word cerrado, closed. And on the sidewalks, there were indecipherable scribblings in red spray paint, graffiti left by the Secret Service, which had controlled the surrounding streets while the Pope was present.

That was about it for tangible souvenirs. The rest of the reminders were less evident, more powerful and nearly impossible to describe.

Sutton, for instance, said he felt different when he led the hymns from his lectern on the altar. He had seen how the Pope had listened more to the prayer of these songs, and less to the mere music, and this was the example he sought to follow Sunday. And it seemed to work.

“I was able to get into it more,” he said.

“I didn’t get to see him,” 52-year-old Hector Miranda of East Los Angeles, a regular at the 7 a.m. Mass, said of the Pope. “But I watched on TV and I feel good coming here, knowing he was in this church. I feel a different feeling. I can’t describe it.”

“It’s a feeling like the church was 30 or 40 years ago,” said one of the street people who attends St. Vibiana’s every Sunday. “There was fervor, more emotions.” The stooped, unshaven man, who wanted to protect his anonymity, also said he could not put to words what he felt inside, and so he shuffled away up 2nd Street.

The gospel for Sunday was built on Jesus’ parable of the vineyard workers, a Biblical passage that ends with the well-known teaching that “the last shall be first.” It is a reminder that life does not always seem fair, and also a message of hope for the downtrodden.

The priests who celebrated Mass were able to spin from this parable sermons that made reference to the papal visit. Monsignor Royale Vadakin told of a woman who had called the rectory just before the Pope’s arrival, pleading that she might bring her child to be blessed by John Paul. The youngster was near death.

“I couldn’t do that,” Vadakin said. He conceded that it all seemed unfair, but added that “God’s ways are not our ways. We do not see the full picture.”

There was a sprinkling of new faces at the three morning Masses, attended by between 40 and 150 or so worshipers, and a few said they had been drawn by a desire to see the place where the Pope had prayed.

One of these first-time visitors to St. Vibiana’s must have found special solace in the gospel message: Sunday morning found Tommy Lasorda’s Dodgers a half-game out of last place, and 18 1/2 out of first. “It gives you a better feeling, knowing the Pope has been here,” the baseball manager said. Lasorda had brought along his best hitter, Pedro Guerrero.

Atter Mass, Lasorda stood outside and signed autographs. Excited little boys thrust at him copies of the church bulletin, which carried a detailed report on the Pope’s visit to St. Vibiana’s. The return to normalcy had been postponed, for the moment.