Diver, dreamer, immigrant: Now he'll speak before the pope

Cesar Viveros used to spend stormy days on the Gulf of Mexico on the barge where he worked, a young oil-rig diver with time on his hands and a dreamy horizon on his mind.

Afloat in Mexican waters off the coast of his native Veracruz for days, even weeks, on end, the son of a factory worker would scavenge for gobs of commercial paint, mix it, and wow his workmates with brushstrokes and beauty as they waited for skies to clear.

Submarines. People working underwater. Fantastical sea creatures. All came to life at his fingertips.

On Saturday, Viveros has a chance to impress a different audience in a different place. He'll step onto a stage with Independence Mall as its backdrop and Pope Francis as the headliner.

Viveros will tell a story not with paint, but with the words he now speaks as a U.S. citizen.

He has been asked to deliver a five-minute speech on immigration - ahead of Francis, whose planned address on immigration is a highly anticipated moment in the pontiff's two-day visit to Philadelphia and first trip to the United States.

Viveros feels kinship with this Argentine-born pope, not merely because he, too, speaks Spanish, but because the pontiff is the son of immigrants - Italians who settled in Latin America. The pope is a cleric of the highest order who still takes pains to convey a vision of the world's people as equals, something that echoes loudly in Viveros' soul.

"I feel peaceful," said Viveros, 46, now married with two children, a household in Fishtown, and status as U.S. citizen acquired over the summer. "The pope says that we all are the son of God."

The very talents that drove Viveros to leave his homeland for an uncertain life in the U.S. have earned him another honor, too.

He won the World Meeting of Families' competition to design and oversee painting of a mural in tribute to the papal visit. The Sacred Now: Faith and Family in the 21st Century is to be mounted on a sprawling wall of St. Malachy School in North Philadelphia and dedicated in November. It is a project of Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program.

The World Meeting also invited him to speak as part of the papal ceremony on Independence Mall.

For a man who came to the U.S. in his 20s with no other member of his family to help, these are considerable milestones.

It was during those oil-rig days about 20 years ago that Viveros became filled with the realization that he needed something else. The work was good, it paid well, and it kept him close to the sea he loved and the family on shore in his native port city.

But the artist felt confined.

Art, Viveros came to realize, should not come second to work. It should be his work. The Yankees who worked the oil rigs with him and admired his painting told him as much. America, they said, was the place for dreamers, though they warned it would be hard.

The youngest of eight children, Viveros arrived in Philadelphia alone. He honed his self-taught mural artistry by working closely with Mural Arts.

His father, Casimiro, had always pushed the children to be fearless and self-sufficient, Viveros said. Even though his job was to help manufacture steel pipes, and his education stopped at elementary school, Casimiro insisted that his children remember at all times that possibilities were limitless.

His youngest child took heed.

"What's the purpose of life?" Viveros said. "For me, it's experience. See, touch, hear, feel. For me, that is the ultimate goal for me on this Earth."

Raised Catholic, Viveros describes himself as spiritual rather than affiliated with an organized religion. Even so, he said, there is something special about Francis.

"You don't need to be religious - don't need to be Catholic - to admire the pope," he said. "To me, he is living the life of Jesus today."

"He makes you feel that he's really, really close to you," Viveros said.

Casimiro Viveros died 10 years ago, but would be proud of his boy, the artist feels certain.

And while he has no expectations of meeting the pope Saturday, Viveros joked that he would love a selfie with the spiritual leader of more than one billion Roman Catholics.

"No," he quickly added. "If I could say only one word, it would be, 'Thanks.' "

For what, exactly?

"He's embracing everyone."

mpanaritis@phillynews.com

215-854-2431 @Panaritism