Southland Catholics Bid the Pope Farewell

They could have slept through it all. They could have watched from the warmth of their own homes. But to some hardy Roman Catholic worshipers in Southern California, the only fitting way to say farewell to their beloved Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, was to gather publicly to watch live broadcasts of his Vatican City funeral -- starting 1 a.m. Friday, Los Angeles time.

Holy Family Catholic Church in Artesia and Our Lady of the Bright Mount in Los Angeles each drew about 200 bleary-eyed parishioners to watch the funeral on 20-foot projection screens inside their candlelit sanctuaries.

Wrapping themselves against the cold and drinking coffee to stay awake, many parishioners said they wanted to feel as if they were witnessing the nearly three-hour ritual firsthand.

“I’m here because this was a very important person in my life,” said Tomasz Kotbuk, 28, a member of Bright Mount’s largely Polish American congregation.

“Sometimes I didn’t even listen to my parents, but I still listened to the Holy Father.”

At Holy Family, Bryan Pena, a 22-year-old Montebello resident, said he had wanted to go to Rome for the service but could not take time off from work. He said that he was devastated by John Paul’s death, but that the late pope would never be forgotten.

“He’ll be with us always.... In our hearts and our minds, we’ll always keep a picture of him,” Pena said.

The all-night group vigils marked one way Roman Catholics in the Southland memorialized their pontiff Friday. Some of them stayed awake to watch the broadcasts privately, while several Catholic schools held memorial Masses featuring footage from the funeral.

Although the archdiocese gave Catholic schools the option to close Friday, many stayed open so their students could experience religious history in the making.

At Sacred Heart Elementary School in Lincoln Heights, for instance, Sister Margaret Anne Burke said she was teaching her fourth-graders about John Paul’s life and the upcoming papal election process.

Her students watched video clips of the funeral Friday, staring in awe at the throngs in St. Peter’s Square.

As the pope’s casket was lowered into the ground, Burke had the children close their eyes and say a silent prayer.

“This is probably one of the greatest men you’ll ever see,” Burke told her 29 students.

“We’re teaching that while it is a sad thing, it’s also a joyous occasion because he is there before the eyes of God,” Burke said later. “They’ll miss the person, but not his memory.”

Students wore black ribbons of mourning, and many said their parents had been talking to them about the pope.

Jesus Castaneda, 10, said he wished he could have gone to see the pontiff lying in state.

“I could have touched the pope’s hand because he was a blessed man,” said the fifth-grader. “I’m both happy and sad, but I know he’s in heaven because he’s not like other guys who are bad or who kill.”

Many of those who watched the funeral said they were struck most by the diversity of the pilgrims.

Father Marcos Gonzalez at St. Andrew Church in Pasadena stayed up watching the funeral until 2:30 a.m. and then slept a few hours before preparing for early morning and noontime Masses for the pope.

As he watched the service, he said, he was amazed by the gathering of religious leaders, statesmen and commoners -- who don’t necessarily see eye to eye on most days -- in memory of one man.

“Isn’t it incredible how this man brought people together?” Gonzalez said.

Back at Our Lady of the Bright Mount on West Adams Boulevard, where hundreds of candles illuminated the cross-shaped sanctuary, Andrzej Antoniuk, coffee in hand, said the night was filled with pride and sadness.

The 42-year-old Los Angeles resident remembered, as a boy growing up under Poland’s Communist regime, how the pope asserted his people’s right to freedom. “He always brought us faith,” Antoniuk said.

At Holy Family in Artesia, Epifanio Matias, 40, knelt alone in the back of the chapel, clasping an unlighted candle and a postcard with the pope’s photograph.

“This is an extremely sad moment,” he said in Spanish. “I’ll always remember the pope.”

“Esta con Dios,” Matias said. He’s with God.

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Staff writer Teresa Watanabe contributed to this report.