An Eclectic Crowd Meets New Cardinal

It went like clockwork. Within two hours, 1,200 invited well-wishers had greeted Cardinal Roger M. Mahony at the Courtyard, Union Station.

Some just smiled. Some shook hands. Some curtsied. A few close friends gave him warm hugs. All were personally photographed with Mahony. It was the city’s social blessing for the cardinal, elevated from archbishop by Pope John Paul II in Rome last month.

Hosts Richard Riordan and Peter and Pam Mullin were never far away. In the introductions, Pam Mullin said: “As my mother in Scotland would have said, you are a local boy who has done very well for himself.”

Neither Gov. Pete Wilson nor Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors chairman Michael Antonovich was able to attend. However, Mayor Tom Bradley dropped by, and Los Angeles City Council president John Ferraro chatted at length with the crowd. Also attending were Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, California Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, U. S. District Court Judge Matt Byrne and former Superior Court presiding judge Richard Byrne and his wife, Chickie.

Tom Buckley and Catellaus Development Corp. had provided the historic site for the reception.

Atop the Italian marble and Mexican red tile floors, beside the art moderne and wrought-iron fixtures and under the Art Deco chandeliers, an eclectic crowd consumed cheese and crackers and roast beef sandwiches with sour cream. At the end of the room, in the “Newspapers-Magazines” railway booth, Rococo caterers’ bartenders tried to keep up the flow of margaritas.

In the crowd: Paul and Sally Conn, Barbara McGinnis, Sister Mary Jean Meier, John and Diane McNicholas, Tom Poston, Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, Warren Valdry, Marshall Rutter, Dori and Joe Pinola (“I have duck bumps--my knees are weak,” she said, after meeting the cardinal), Jimmy and Anne Murphy, Bruce and Raylene Meyer, Kevin and Erin McKenzie, Maileen Phillips, Billy and Cindy Simon, Bob and Betty Strub, Nelson and Sharon Rising, Michael and Gretchen Wayne and Ray and Sandra Remy.

The cardinal had promised to sign every autograph and to stay “until the train comes in.” The party ended when Santiago Vargas and his mariachi Juvenil Tecalitlan stopped the music to have their photographs taken with the cardinal.

Then Los Angeles Police Sgt. George Haines’ officers, Msgr. Kevin Kostelnik (priest secretary to the cardinal) and the hosts agreed on departure matters.

Departing guests passed demonstrators in paper miters carrying placards and parading a 10-foot inflated condom in protest of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion. The cardinal was whisked into a police-escorted sedan at another exit.