District residents Passy Pomeroy and Immy-Rose Lassiter, both born in Uganda, waved yellow-and-white Vatican flags as they joined several thousand others on the White House lawn Wednesday in singing happy birthday to Pope Benedict XVI.

It was important for American Catholics to get a firsthand look at the pope, the women said, especially because he was following the popular Pope John Paul II, the second-longest-serving pontiff in church history.

“We didn’t know [Pope Benedict] before, but now we do,” Lassiter said. “We are going to judge him in his own right. This is the first step to have an individual relationship with us.”

Catholics from around the globe poured into Washington on Wednesday to catch a quick glimpse of the pope.

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More than 13,500 gathered in their Sunday best on the South Lawn of the White House, while thousands more lined the city streets for a chance-in-a-lifetime look at the direct successor of St. Peter.

Outside the White House gates, lines of onlookers formed on the pope’s 1.6-mile route from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to the Vatican Embassy. In some spots, the crowds ran five people deep.

Not all of the viewers came to praise the pope. One born-again Christian with a bullhorn told Catholic dignitaries they were destined for hell. Dozens of others shook signs decrying the church’s sex abuse scandal.

Protester Kelly Hidalgo, of Miami, said she wanted to end celibacy requirements for priests.

“Two thousand years of celibacy, and what has it done?” Hidalgo asked. “Kids are raped, and it’s covered up by the church.”

But the vast majority of those lining Washington’s streets came to celebrate the papal visit.

At Washington Circle, parishioners from Catedral Basilica del Sagrado Corazon in Newark, N.J., played guitars, ukuleles and bongos, singing in Spanish, “Jesus Cristo ... Allelulia ... Resucito.”

Shortly after noon, a murmur buzzed through the crowd. “There’s the popemobile!” one onlooker shouted.

Cheers rose as Benedict sped by in the bullet-proof glass-cased popemobile. In seconds the pope was gone, barely giving those with cameras a chance to focus their lenses.

The brief encounter was long enough for the Fehrmann family, all 10 of them.

“For Catholics, we get a lot of grace just by getting a glimpse of the Holy Father,” said mother Michelle Fehrmann, of Frederick, Md.

Catholics Ken and Mary Henriques, of Newport, R.I., said they can tell their friends they saw the pope.

“But you don’t have to say it was for only 10 seconds,” Ken said.

Ben Newell contributed to this story.

smccabe@dcexaminer.com