Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 16, 1995 TAG: 9501250010
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MANILA, PHILIPPINES LENGTH: Medium
And, for the first time in four decades, members of China's state-sponsored church joined a pope in prayer.
Vatican officials estimated Sunday's crowd between 2 million and 5 million, but its sheer size defied any accurate measure. People filled the huge Rizal Park, where the Mass was held, and spread for miles along wide boulevards.
The crowd clearly was larger than the 2 million people who attended the pope's final Mass in Krakow, his Polish hometown, in 1979 during his first visit to his homeland as pope.
John Paul, who arrived Thursday, leaves today for Papua New Guinea to continue his pilgrimage. He also will visit Australia and Sri Lanka as part of his 11-day tour.
After the Mass, the pope told Asian bishops that the Roman Catholic Church's future lies in Asia, home of two-thirds of the world's people but where only 3 percent are Christian.
``Just as in the first millennium, the cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second, on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the third Christian millennium, a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent,'' the pope said.
The Philippines is Asia's only predominantly Christian country, and about 85 percent of the 66 million Filipinos profess Catholicism.
Despite the enthusiasm for the pontiff here, the Vatican faces obstacles to spreading the faith to Asia's teeming millions.
U.S. airlines operating in the Pacific were alerted to a bomb threat from Muslim extremists, who U.S. and Philippine authorities said were planning to attack a U.S. aircraft to protest the pope's Asian tour.
For the first time, delegates from China, which refuses to allow Catholics to accept papal supremacy, prayed with the pope.
by CNB