Pope presses on with pilgrimage

PRESSING on with a gruelling four-day pilgrimage, Pope John Paul II brought his message of spiritual renewal to central Slovakia yesterday after a faltering start to his trip.

The 83-year-old Pope looked more alert as he presided over a Mass for up to 150,000 pilgrims braving a chilly drizzle in Banska Bystrica, the epicenter of a Slovak uprising against Nazi sympathisers who held power here during World War II.

Speaking in Slovak in a shaky and sometimes slurred voice, the pontiff thanked God that "he allowed me another apostolic trip in the name of Christ".