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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2005 
Pope Honored With Salutes, Masses
 Lisa J. Adams -Associated Press
| | John Paul II is profoundly revered in Mexico, a country which he visited five times and which he called "ever faithful" to the Roman Catholic Church. |
Hundreds of faithful worshippers who joyously embraced Pope John Paul II during five unprecedented visits to Mexico gathered Friday for sorrowful Masses after offering final salutes to his empty popemobile as it rolled through the capital's streets one last time.
In a sad, pre-dawn goodbye timed to coincide with John Paul II's official funeral in Rome, tearful crowds packed into the massive, stadium-style Basilica of Guadalupe, where the pope canonized Indian saint Juan Diego in 2002.
Those who couldn't fit inside the church spilled out onto its enormous exterior concrete plaza, illuminated by thousands of votive candles and the spotlights of hovering news helicopters.
A second Mass was celebrated by top Mexican Roman Catholic Church officials at noontime Friday at the Basilica. In other signs of respect, Mexican Interior Secretary Santiago Creel presided over a flag-lowering ceremony in honor of the pope on Friday morning.
Church officials began the early Mass with a solemn procession to the altar of the basilica in which participants carried articles of clothing the pope wore when he was here and a chair he sat in while addressing a crowd of more than 100,000 people at Mexico City's Azteca Stadium in January 1999.
The nation's largest television network, Televisa, carried the Mass live, during which mourners held pictures of John Paul close to their hearts and cried openly, while mariachis strummed guitars and blew on trumpets in honor of the pope who once sang to the crowds here in Spanish.
Prior to the Mass, dozens of people clutching flowers and yellow and white balloons followed the popemobile in its last journey from the residence of the papal nuncio in southeast Mexico City, north to the basilica.
Ringed by police cars and motorcycles, the boxy white vehicle, about the size of a small mobile home, was fitted with large pictures of a smiling John Paul II on each side.
Its interior lights were on, and those jockeying to catch a glimpse saw a framed picture of the pope on a chair shrouded in a white sheet and surrounded by candles and flowers.
Some sang and others cried as the popemobile passed, while others followed the vehicle on bicycles or jogged alongside for several city blocks.
John Paul, who died last Saturday at the age of 84, is profoundly revered in Mexico, which was among the countries he visited during his first foreign trip in 1979. He returned four more times to the predominantly Catholic country, which he labeled "ever faithful." |
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