 |
| CNN WEB SITES: |
|
| TIME INC. SITES: |
| MORE SERVICES: |
| video on demand |
| video archive |
| audio on demand |
| news email services |
| free email accounts |
| desktop headlines |
| pointcast |
| pagenet |
| DISCUSSION: |
| message boards |
| chat |
| feedback |
| SITE GUIDES: |
| help |
| contents |
| search |
| FASTER ACCESS: |
| europe |
| japan |
| WEB SERVICES: |
Main | Biography | Successors | Selection Process | Photo Essay
Quiz | Video Gallery | Pictorial Biography | Legacy
St. Louis eager for pope's visit
| |
|
Pope John Paul II often uses the "pope mobile" |
|
Web posted at: 12:19 p.m. EST (1719 GMT)
In this story:
ST. LOUIS (CNN) -- Pope John Paul II's brief visit to St. Louis, beginning Tuesday, is expected to draw huge crowds to a city with strong ties to Catholicism.
During his 30-hour stay, the pope will take part in a youth rally, a Mass before about 100,000 people and an evening prayer service. He'll also ride in three motorcades expected to draw up to 1 million people.
He'll also meet briefly on his arrival with President Clinton and with Vice President Al Gore on his departure on Wednesday.
The visit is the sixth time John Paul will have set foot on U.S. territory but it's his first time, as pope, in St. Louis, a city named after the canonized King Louis IX of France and where the local Catholic archdiocese has more than 200 parishes.
| |
| Archbishop Rigali discusses the pope's scheduled meeting with President Clinton | |
AIFF or WAV
(249 K / 25 sec. audio)
| |
"St. Louis has a very important part in the history of the Catholic church in the U.S.," said Justin Rigali, the archbishop of St. Louis.
According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the area's strong Catholic presence includes more than 100,000 people attending Catholic schools ranging from the smallest parish grade school to St. Louis University.
The newspaper also reports that more than 20 area hospitals have church affiliations.
"The pope has been to the east coast, to west coast, down South to New Orleans and in Chicago and now we welcome him with great joy to St. Louis," Archbishop Rigali told CNN on Monday.
In St. Louis before, but not as pope
While it is true that in his two decades as pope, John Paul has never been to St. Louis, his stopover is still a return visit.
The 78-year-old leader of the Catholic church first saw St. Louis 30 years ago when he was a vigorous Polish cardinal named Karol Wojtyla, bent on improving his English on his first visit to North America.
Back then, a Polish priest friend had suggested he might find his warmest welcome in any U.S. diocese that had a fellow cardinal. So the tourist from Krakow visited several major U.S. cities, St. Louis among them.
Parishioners at St. Stanislaus Kostka church here fed him spicy Polish sausages and took him down to the banks of the Mississippi River where he saw the soaring St. Louis Arch and his music-loving ears heard a riverboat calliope pump out "St. Louie Blues."
Now, as pope, his sight-seeing may be more limited this time, but he'll still have a chance to savor the same sausages once made by local Polish butcher Thaddeus Piekutowski.
Piekutowski's son, Ted, who now presides at the meat grinder, has delivered 50 more pounds of those sausages to Archbishop Rigali's residence to welcome back a beloved tourist.
|
The Associated Press contributed to this report.