By Richard Clough
bruin senior staff
rclough@media.ucla.edu
Catholics across Southern California and throughout the world
mourned the death of Pope John Paul II in a series of weekend
Masses, sharing memories and reflecting on the legacy of a leader
remembered for his worldliness.
Area churches held additional services late last week to pray
for the pope’s rapidly declining health, and after news broke
of the pontiff’s death Saturday, Catholics all over the
globe, from St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City to the
University Catholic Center on Gayley Avenue, began mourning the
loss of the 84-year-old spiritual leader.
An estimated 100,000 people turned out at St. Peter’s
Square on Sunday for a morning Mass, and thousands more ““
tourists, Romans, young and old ““ kept coming throughout the
day, filling the broad boulevard leading to St. Peter’s
Basilica. They clutched rosaries and newspaper photos of the late
pontiff as they stood shoulder to shoulder to pray for the soul of
“our beloved John Paul.”
In Los Angeles, residents remembered the pope as a man of grand
stature who could unite people across the world.
“Even with his humility he was able to pull the world
together. He was able, as a man, to move the world,” said
Lucia Sanchez Aldana, assistant director of Westfield Residence, a
cultural center affiliated with the Catholic Church.
Sanchez Aldana said she traveled with a group of people to
Mexico to serenade John Paul when he first visited the country in
1978 and said she was struck by the way he was able to connect with
the people on a personal level.
“He was able to engage each one of the individuals. He was
able to love all of them and everyone loved him,” she
said.
Westfield Residence plans to hold Mass for the pope each day
this week.
At the University Catholic Center, about 100 students and
community members turned out for Sunday’s 10:30 a.m. Mass
performed by Friar Pat Hensy. Though the service did not focus on
the pope, it began with a prayer for the pope and the request by
Hensy that those in attendance “celebrate that he is now in
heaven.”
John Paul II last visited Los Angeles in 1987 when he held Mass
at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
After flying to Rome, Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Los
Angeles Archdiocese, issued a statement in which he remembered the
pope’s last L.A. trip and expressed sadness over his
death.
“Today, we are not altogether surprised, but profoundly
saddened nonetheless, by the news of the passing of His Holiness
Pope John Paul II into eternal life,” Mahony said in the
statement.
Mahony, along with cardinals from across the world, will travel
to Vatican City for the pope’s funeral this week and
subsequent conclave, which will choose the next pope. The conclave
must begin 15 to 20 days after the pope’s death.
Television images Sunday gave the public its first view of the
pope since his death: lying in the Vatican’s frescoed
Apostolic Palace, dressed in crimson vestments and a white
bishop’s miter on his head.
John Paul died at 9:37 p.m. Saturday in his apartment of septic
shock and cardio-circulatory collapse, the Vatican said. The
pope’s recent, well-publicized decline in health was marked
by heart and kidney failure, a urinary tract infection and high
fever. He had feeding and breathing tubes inserted. Last Friday, he
received the sacrament for the sick and dying, also known as
“last rites.”
At their meetings beginning today, the cardinals will read John
Paul’s final instructions, including his choice of burial
place.
Most popes in recent centuries have asked to be buried in the
crypts below St. Peter’s Basilica, but some have suggested
the first Polish-born pope might have chosen to be laid to rest in
his native country.
John Paul, who was 58 when the cardinals in 1978 elected him the
first non-Italian pope in 455 years, left a legacy of conservatism.
He opposed divorce, birth control and abortion, the ordination of
women and the lifting of the celibacy requirement for priests.
But while some disagreed with the pope’s social and
religious beliefs, non-Catholic religious leaders have praised John
Paul’s efforts to improve interreligious relations.
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of UCLA Hillel, expressed
appreciation for what he called the pope’s “extensive
integrity” with regard to Catholic-Jewish relations and his
attempt to “atone for the church’s history of
oppression, brutality and indifference” toward the Jewish
people.
“This ability to confront history ““ that’s a
rare quality among nations and among peoples who are willing to
admit past offenses,” Seidler-Feller said.
Last Friday, Seidler-Feller received a prayer for the pope
written by his colleagues to be read on Saturday, which he
described as “an adaptation of a traditional Jewish prayer
that is recited in the synagogue on behalf of those who are
ill.”
Seidler-Feller said he hopes the next pope will pursue goals
similar to those of John Paul.
In the Holy Land on Sunday, Israelis remembered John Paul as a
builder of bridges between the faiths, noting how he had embraced
Holocaust survivors with kindness and maintained friendships with
Jewish friends from childhood.
John Paul’s worldly presence garnered him praise as a
powerful leader.
“He was a religious leader and a spiritual personality of
the first order,” Seidler-Feller said.
With reports from Natalie Banach, Bruin senior staff, and
Bruin wire services.