Forty years ago, Timothy Manning, then a...

Forty years ago, Timothy Manning, then a 39-year-old Los Angeles auxiliary bishop, addressed nearly 65,000 people in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a suddenly popular “Mary’s Hour.” There had been a turn-away crowd the previous year when the Roman Catholic devotional event was inaugurated in the Hollywood Bowl.

Attendance rose to more than 100,000 in 1954, then slipped annually to a low of 29,000 in 1969 when it was held in Dodger Stadium. It was not resumed the next year.

But “Mary’s Hour” was revived last year in the Hollywood Bowl and attracted nearly 8,000 people.

In this year’s renewal from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday in the Bowl, archdiocesan organizers hope to draw more than 10,000 parishioners from Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Cardinal Manning, who retired as Los Angeles archbishop in 1985, will preside at the para-liturgical service and deliver the homily.

Although the archdiocese disclosed Thursday that Manning is undergoing radiation treatments for cancer, his physician, Dr. Brian E. Henderson, director of the Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Center at USC, said Friday that the cardinal is in “good spirits and trying to live out his life as productively and peacefully as he can.” Manning was first reported to have cancer in his spine, but Henderson added that about two to three months ago, the cardinal was found to have lung cancer that spread to his spine.

ACTION

What started with sermons and prayer vigils last Sunday will continue in Los Angeles with an invitation-only prayer breakfast Friday in West Hollywood for as many as 300 clergy. It is part of a national campaign to heighten pressure on Congress to pass a bill extending existing U.S. economic sanctions against South Africa because of that country’s apartheid policies. The Revs. James Lawson, Dumas Harshaw, William Hornaday, George Regas and Carl A. Bryant; Rabbi Allen Freehling, and Archbishops Vatche Hovsepian and Roger M. Mahony are among the clergy who will speak briefly at the breakfast. A spokesman said it is hoped that clergy will urge churchgoers to wear a red ribbon to symbolize their support for increased sanctions.

PEOPLE

Mata Amritanandamayi, 34, one of several Hindu women from India who in recent years have been seen by devotees as sources for blessings of the “Divine Mother,” will appear in Los Angeles for the first time Tuesday through Wednesday at the Presbyterian Conference Center in Pacific Palisades. “Just being in her presence invokes deep feelings of love, peace and forgiveness,” spokeswoman Nancy J. Murray said. Last Wednesday night, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, the female successor to Swami Muktananda, held forth before 5,500 people at the Shrine Auditorium.