 |
|
|
 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2005 
Faithful Pay Tribute to Fallen Pope
 The Herald Mexico
| | Some prayed, while others lit candles, launched balloons and chanted joyously to remember the popular leader. |
Mexico City - Catholic faithful around the nation continued to mourn the death of Pope John Paul II on Sunday, as bells tolled from churches and cathedrals and weeping worshippers lit candles and knelt in prayer.
At the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, thousands came to light candles and leave flowers at a statue of the fallen pope.
"It was expected," a tearful Joventino Monte said of the Pope's death. "But it hurts, because he brought peace and tranquility to the entire world."
At the capital's Metropolitan Cathedral at the Zocalo, or main square, worshippers both young and old released balloons, most of them white, some bearing the image of a dove, into the air at 12 noon in a symbolic act of farewell.
Others gathered nearby chose to express their love for the deceased Pope by breaking into coordinated chants of "John Paul II, the whole world loves you," "You can see it, you can feel it, John Paul is present," and "John Paul, brother, now you are Mexican."
Estimates say that from 80 to 90 percent of Mexico's 106 million residents are Catholic, and the pope visited the nation five times. He was wildly popular here, especially after he canonized Juan Diego, the Indian who witnessed the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 1531.
President Vicente Fox, a fervent Catholic, will make history when he travels to the Vatican this week for the pope's funeral. No Mexican official has attended a pope's funeral in the last 134 years Mexico restored diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1992.
The 1910 Mexican Revolution gave rise to an adamantly secular state that stripped the Roman Catholic Church of much of the power and authority it had enjoyed in colonial times and throughout the 19th century. During the subsequent 71 years of Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, rule, Mexican presidents always kept their distance from the Catholic Church to such a degree, in fact, that they never discussed their religious beliefs in public. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us