Pope appeals for world peace

Pope John Paul II appealed for world peace today at the start of a short visit to Madrid, testing his poor health with his first trip abroad in nine months.

“I desire for everyone the peace that only God, through Jesus Christ, can give us,” he said in brief arrival remarks. “I ask for and desire, for Spain and the whole world, a peace that is fruitful, stable and lasting.”

The pope did not specifically refer to the Iraq war, which Spain’s government supported and Spain’s people opposed. He added, speaking in Spanish: “Peace that is the work of justice, truth, love and serenity. The peace that people enjoy only when they follow the dictates of the law of God.”

The pontiff, who turns 83 this month, was greeted at Barajas airport by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia. The pope used a lift to descend from the Alitalia plane, and a trolley to move along a red carpet laid out for him.

He looked frail as he waved to the crowd of several hundred, but his voice was firm and he appeared to be holding up well after the two-hour flight from Rome. Onlookers cheered his name as they waved yellow-and-white Vatican flags and red-and-yellow Spanish ones.

It was John Paul’s fifth visit to Spain and 99th abroad overall in his 24-year papacy.

King Juan Carlos, speaking before the pope, praised the pontiff as “a tireless fighter for the most noble causes”.

While the pope conferred with the king inside the terminal, runners in bright yellow shirts set out for the papal nunciature, or Vatican embassy, in a relay procession heralding the pope’s arrival.

The pope later followed the same route, riding in a white car with large bulletproof windows, waving to people lining the road into town from the airport.

About 2,000 people gathered at the nunciature. Issam Douay, 22, a Moroccan student who is Muslim, travelled to Madrid from Toledo to see John Paul because “the pope represents the best that Christianity can be”.

Elderly women holding rosaries cried as the pope rode by them on Avenida de America, and medical crews treated one on the verge of fainting.

Many people weathered a bright sun and 27-degree (80 F) heat for up to three hours to get a good spot for viewing the pontiff.

Virginia Molina, 80, said, “Coming out to see the pope today is the least I could do. I am proud of this pope.”

In Madrid, posters of the pontiff and the slogan, “You will be my witnesses,” hung from streetlights along the broad Paseo de la Castellana, one of the boulevards where an open-air Mass will be celebrated on Sunday.

The Roman Catholic Church expects up to one million people to attend the service, during which the pope will proclaim five new saints.

The two priests and three nuns are 20th-century Spaniards honoured for their work with the poor.

One priest, Pedro Poveda, was assassinated in 1936 during the opening days of the Spanish Civil War.

The church claims 4,184 clergy were killed during the war by the government, or Republican, side, which accused the church of backing fascist Gen Francisco Franco.

On Saturday evening, the pope will attend a youth rally at another air base outside the capital.

Vatican officials see the 32-hour trip as a test of the pontiff’s health as they prepare for a more ambitious travel agenda later this year, including trips to Croatia and Mongolia.

The pope shows symptoms of Parkinson’s disease: slurred speech and trembling hands. He will celebrate Mass from a rolling hydraulic chair.

“This will probably be this pope’s last visit to Spain, although you never know,” the archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco, said in an interview published Saturday in the newspaper El Mundo.

Spanish church officials hope the visit will reinvigorate a flock that has seen many members ignore Roman Catholic teachings since Franco’s death in 1975. His government worked closely with the church to encourage strict adherence to doctrine.

Only about a quarter of Spain’s Roman Catholics go to church even once a month, polls show, while about half acknowledge they almost never attend Mass at all.

More than 8,000 police are patrolling the city in one of the largest security efforts in Madrid’s history.

The five candidates for canonisation were beatified in the 1980s and 1990s. Beatification requires evidence of a miracle after the person’s death. Sainthood requires evidence of a second miracle.

At Sunday’s Mass, five people who the church claims experienced such miracles will sit near the altar.

One is six-year-old Manuel Villar, an Argentine boy who nearly drowned in a pond in 1998. He was in a deep coma when his mother Araceli started praying to Maria Maravillas de Jesus, a nun who founded a series of convents for the Barefoot Carmelites. The nun died in 1974 and was beatified in 1998.

After 19 hours of non-stop prayer, Manuel suddenly opened his eyes and hugged his mother, according to El Mundo.