Making Papal Pilgrimages

Teresa Enriquez cooked for weeks and sold more than 450 tamales throughout her Norwalk neighborhood to raise money to see him, transforming masa preparation into a papal passion.

In Montebello, Connie Rooselaar carefully packed her little porcelain baby Jesus and prayed beneath the images of saints in her bedroom before calling the airport shuttle for the pilgrimage.

And in El Monte, Marlene Leon and her 9-year-old son, Ernie, planned to sleep on the street outside the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City to awaken near the man they consider the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

Together, Enriquez, Rooselaar and Leon--along with about 100 others of the curious and faithful--boarded a flight Thursday morning to be with Pope John Paul II on his fourth visit to Mexico. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles also departed Thursday for the papal visit.

But although there is nervous excitement among pope watchers, missionaries and the many deeply religious Catholics trekking to Mexico for the pontiff’s visit, Los Angeles church leaders said the trip generated less fervor than expected. When the pope first visited Mexico in 1979, several churches organized large groups for the trip. This time, only two major organizations--one of them an El Monte-based group that will do missionary work--and a few hundred devoted Angelenos have gotten involved.

Part of the reason is the evolution of media and live television coverage of all events, said Louis Velasquez, spokesman for the Archdiocese Office of Hispanic Ministry. Part, too, is that 20 years into John Paul’s traveling papacy, much of the world has already been in his presence.

“It’s not a lack of love or respect. I just think many people have seen him already either in Mexico or here in the U.S.,” Velasquez said.

Angel Pedroza, tour director of Vista Travel in El Monte, organized a pope package--including air fare and hotel accommodations--originally for the large congregation at Epiphany Church in South El Monte. But when few inquired, he advertised in the archdiocese’s Spanish publication, Vida Nueva, where he received a better response.

“The feeling among many people is that I don’t need to spend all that money if I can watch everything on television or find out about it on the Internet,” said Pedroza.

Even so, Teresa Enriquez needed to go.

Since she learned to recite the rosary as a little girl in Guadalajara, Enriquez has been enamored of the church and its teachings. Back-to-back tragedies tested her strength when her husband died in 1988 and her 18-year-old son, Juan, was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1989. Shortly after, a cruel phone call was like more salt in her wounds. An unidentified woman told Enriquez her son had been taken away because the family received too much welfare.

Through the heartbreak, Enriquez never lost faith. Seeing the pope is her small reward.

“For me, this is a dream to see him,” said Enriquez, 53.

When she first heard in November about the pope’s visit, she badly wanted to go but didn’t have the money.

That’s when the idea hit. In December, she began making tamales, sometimes staying up all night. Friends bought dozens to help out. By Dec. 27, she had raised more than $500, enough to see the pope in what could be his last trip to Latin America.

The aging pontiff is hardly the jet-setting figure he once was. His curved body, trembling hands, and sometimes sluggish speech present signs of Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis the Vatican has not confirmed.

Marlene Leon, who will be doing missionary work in Mexico, said she’s going to help the ailing pope and fire people up about faith. As a student at Cal State Northridge, she went through her own spiritual journey, converting from Catholicism to Protestantism and then back again. Last year, she saw the pope for the first time on his visit to Cuba. Now, she’s taking her son with her to partake in the religious experience.

“I remember in Cuba my feet were bleeding from walking around so much,” said Leon. “But it was awesome because you find people are so thirsty for faith.”

Connie Rooselaar is what you might call a pope devotee.

She saw him the first time he went to Mexico, in 1979. She saw him at the Vatican several times. And for the past 10 years, she’s traveled on a tour to Bethlehem and Rome each Christmas, seeing the pope at St. Peter’s Square. She’s seen the pope so many times, she swears he knows her face.

“I always take my baby Jesus and a little picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I watch him walk by. And he does a double-take as if to say, ‘I’ve seen that scene before,’ ” said the 86-year-old Rooselaar.

Rooselaar emigrated from Aguascalientes, Mexico, as a baby when her mother carried her over the border in her arms. Raised in Boyle Heights, she moved to Montebello after marrying her sweetheart, Anthony Van Rooselaar. But since he died in 1968, she has lived alone, immersing herself in the Church and marveling at the personality that is the pope.

“He shakes a bit, but the good Lord keep him. He really represents Christ on Earth. He is a saint. He has to be,” she said.

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Pope’s Schedule in Mexico

TODAY

3:15 p.m. John Paul II arrives at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City.

5:30 p.m. Signs the Apostolic Exhortation formally closing the Synod of America, a monthlong meeting with bishops of the Americas held in Rome in 1997.

SATURDAY

10 a.m. Celebrates Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There he addresses the bishops of Latin America and North America.

6 p.m. Visits Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo at Los Pinos, the presidential palace.

SUNDAY

10:15 a.m. Celebrates Mass at Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack.

5:45 p.m. Visits sick at Adolfo Lopez Mateos Hospital.

MONDAY

5 p.m. Addresses crowd at Aztec Stadium, Mexico’s biggest sports arena.

TUESDAY

9:30 a.m. Departs Mexico City for St. Louis.

TELEVISION COVERAGE

Three local Spanish-language stations--KWHY-TV Channel 22, KVEA-TV Channel 52 and KMEX-TV Channel 34--will have the most complete coverage of the pope’s visit to Mexico. In English, KTTV-TV Channel 11 and KABC-TV Channel 7 also will have detailed coverage from Mexico. KCBS-TV Channel 2, KNBC-TV Channel 4, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and KCOP-TV Channel 13 will rely on network and station-group resources for their coverage. KCAL-TV Channel 9 will have live coverage.