Catholic Church

The first Station of the Cross was observed in front of a small church on the corner of Gless and 3rd streets in Boyle Heights. Under a hot noon sun, hundreds of worshipers listened as a lector told the biblical story of Pontius Pilate ordering the crucifixion. "Jesus is condemned to death," she read. The worshipers had gathered to mark the 14 Stations of the Cross, which portray Jesus Christ's final journey from condemnation to burial.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles serves three counties with an estimated Roman Catholic population of 4.3 million. So it didn't take long to distribute the just over 100 tickets it was allotted for Masses to be said by Pope Benedict XVI when he visits the East Coast this month. Among those who clamored for tickets is Helen Milan, 51, who says she is trying to make up for more than two decades as a lapsed Catholic.

When Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States next week, he will find a nation consumed by a heated presidential election campaign. Will his presence have an influence? Although he will meet with President Bush at the White House during his East Coast swing, Benedict is not expected to overtly speak of the campaign or U.S. politics.

In his first pilgrimage to the United States as pope, Benedict XVI will minister to a Roman Catholic Church that is both troubled and alive with faith. From the Vatican, the church in America is often seen as problematic, consumed by sex abuse scandals and populated by "cafeteria Catholics" who pick and choose the religious rules they want to follow, casually adjusting doctrine to meet the demands of their busy lives in an overly permissive society.

In a summons that is prompting both anticipation and unease, Pope Benedict XVI has asked the presidents of all U.S. Catholic colleges and universities, along with Catholic school superintendents from across the country, to meet with him this week during his East Coast visit. Will Benedict, who was viewed as the Vatican's "enforcer" of Roman Catholic orthodoxy before he became pope, chastise American educators for not adhering more strictly to traditional church teachings?

In an unprecedented gesture, Pope Benedict XVI met privately Thursday with a small group of men and women who were sexually abused as youths by their clergy, an emotional encounter of prayer and tears. Participants said later that they had experienced a long-overdue sense of "fulfillment." Inside the chapel of the Apostolic Nunciature, the pope spoke to the victims individually and as a group, and they prayed together, said Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.

The pope may be viewed by his church as infallible, but for his U.N. visit, it was Alice Hecht's job to make sure everyone else would be as close to perfect as possible. Hecht, United Nations chief of protocol, said that prepping for Friday's visit by Pope Benedict XVI was much more difficult than getting ready for a state visit by President Bush, who didn't move around the building as much or require the same kind of security. Hecht, a U.N.

When the China Philharmonic Orchestra performs for Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican next week, it will start with Mozart's religiously inspired Requiem and end with a popular Chinese folk song called "Jasmine Flower." The concert Wednesday is a historic gesture that may help improve relations between the Vatican and Beijing, a major goal for this pope as he seeks to expand freedoms for Roman Catholics in China.

When the state Catholic Schools Junior High Academic Decathlon begins today in Chula Vista, a small Mid-City school will be representing the Los Angeles Archdiocese for the third time, having beaten out more than 100 other parochial schools to get there. Cathedral Chapel School represented the archdiocese in the state competition in 2002 and 2005, winning the state title in 2002 and earning a reputation as the tough little school that nobody had heard of.

Ask Josephine Gonzalez how many children a family should have and the stick-figured 31-year-old mother answers without hesitation. "I only wanted three," she says, trying to soothe the naked baby boy who tugs at her ragged dress. But Gonzalez is, in fact, a mother of six. Her sister Angie Maquiran, two years older, has seven children.