Pope Celebrates Mass In The Land Of Giants Thousands Pack Rainy New York Stadium To See, Hear Pontiff
Under blustery, rain-soaked skies, they endured the chill, the traffic jams, the security bottlenecks and the umbrella ban. But in the end, they had seen and felt him.
A soggy but exuberant crowd of 83,000, exhibiting the fervor and some of the mannerisms of sports fans, squeezed into nearly every foot of Giants Stadium on Thursday night to participate in a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II.
The seemingly weary but still charismatic pope delivered the homily while seated, speaking out for human rights and an openness to immigrants, calling for “love and the works of love” and expressing the “need for social solidarity.”
He also sounded a strong message against abortion. “Sadly, today a new class of people is being excluded,” he said. “When the unborn child - the stranger in the womb - is declared to be beyond the protection of society, not only are America’s deepest traditions radically undermined and endangered, but a moral blight is brought upon society.”
For many, he was a remote speck perched on an altar in the end zone of the tarpaulin-covered football field, but that was intimate enough for those chosen from among the state’s 3.25 million Catholics to be part of the crowd. Vera O’Connell, of Mount Laurel, N.J., who had come on this special day with her husband, Jim, expressed it simply: “We are here because we love him.”
Many also came looking for particular prayers to be answered. George Hickey, an insurance agent from Seagirt, N.J., has five children, four with diabetes. “Through prayer and faith in God, they will be all right,” he said, hopefully.
In the first of three large outdoor Masses he will celebrate in his tightly orchestrated four-day visit to the New York metropolitan area, the pope appeared in a sports setting painstakingly transformed into something meant to offer the feel of a roofless church. One did, however, have to overlook the billboards advertising Marlboro, Bud Light and Coca-Cola.
With heavy rain falling throughout the ceremony, the pope presided from a 50-foot-square altar, surrounded by 10,000 gold-and-white mums, all of it put in place in just three days to avoid interference with New York Giants scrimmages. He sat on a pearly white 23-foot-high throne, upholstered in cardinal red, that had been carved by hand by a New Jersey furniture maker. Eight arrays of speakers had been scientifically arranged to enable everyone in the stadium to hear his words clearly.
The most daunting logistical challenge of the Mass was finding a way to give communion to 83,000 people, especially since the schedule allotted a scant 20 minutes to complete it. It was hardly possible to have everyone file down a central aisle as at a church.
To make it happen, some 550 communion ministers were dispatched to far-flung spots in the stands marked by yellow tape on the arms of seats and yellow paint on the steps. To guide them, each minister was accompanied by a high school volunteer. The teenagers, themselves unacquainted with the intricacies of Giants Stadium, rehearsed their route Tuesday evening until they had it embalmed in their memories.
Once the ministers threaded their way to their locations, the student guides ushered people up for communion, two rows at a time. Each minister was responsible for 160 people, and it was a bring-your-own wafer protocol for the ministers.