Main | Biography | Successors | Selection Process | Photo Essay
Quiz | Video Gallery | Pictorial Biography | Legacy

Mexico adores pope, hails new international holiday

INTERACTIVE:

The pope's visit to Mexico: a gallery

ALSO:

Pope condemns excesses of capitalism in Americas document

January 23, 1999
Web posted at: 11:47 p.m. EST (0447 GMT)

MEXICO CITY (CNN) -- Pope John Paul II on Saturday elevated a Mexican holiday into an international celebration, energizing the faith of millions in one of the most devout Roman Catholic countries in the world.

The pope declared December 12 Virgin Mary of Guadalupe Day, an annual religious holiday for the Americas, while celebrating Mass before 10,000 at the Basilica of Guadalupe, one of his church's most holy shrines.

Amid urban sprawl in northern Mexico City, the world's most populous Catholic city, the basilica stands on Tepeyac Hill, the site where a dark-skinned Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to an Aztec peasant nearly 500 years ago. According to legend, the Virgin of Guadalupe revealed herself to Juan Diego and left her image on his cloak.

The apparition helped the Spanish convert millions of Indians during the Spanish conquest. Today the Virgin of Guadalupe adorns everything in the country from taxicabs to mountain shrines, as many Mexicans remain passionately devoted to the Virgin.

Many keep the image of the Virgin close and come to her on their knees at the basilica

They embraced the pope with equal adulation during his fourth trip to Mexico. Chanting "Maria, Maria, Maria," and singing Mexican folk songs, devotees began arriving at the basilica at 5 a.m. In the square outside the shrine, women embraced and wept as they watched the pope arrive on giant television screens. Inside, priests climbed on top of one another to take pictures of the pope.

Mexican Manual Olivares, 48, who said he saw the pope on his first visit to Mexico 20 years ago, carried an amulet with an image of the Virgin and a few grains of sand from where she is said to have appeared. He hoped for a blessing from the pope, "the representative of God."

En route to the basilica, Pope John Paul II's "popemobile," a specially designed white and glass minibus, slowed as he blessed a huge cross erected by a cement company on Misterios Street. Crowds of Mexicans lined his route and packed the area surrounding the basilica.

With flickering candles and yellow-and-white Vatican flags, they showered John Paul with an adoration he says he misses when back in Rome. In the crowd, Dora Hernandez held up a framed portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe in hopes of catching part of John Paul's blessing. "He is a second Christ," she said.

"Hopefully his visit will change us -- there is so much drug addiction, so much robbery, so much sin."

RELATED VIDEO
CNN's Lucia Newman explores Mexico's devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe
Real	28K	80K
Windows Media	28K	80K

Drug trafficking was one of the topics the 78-year-old pontiff addressed in his homily, which drew from a new document outlining the mission of the church in the Americas in the next century.

A survey by the University of Guadalajara's Center for Opinion Studies found nearly 60 percent of those reached by telephone said they were watching Saturday's Mass. Another 6 percent said they were listening by radio.

Eighty-nine percent of those who said they were watching or listening to the Mass said that the pope's words could improve their lives, and nearly 97 percent said they approved of the pope's message on his arrival Friday. The survey of 600 people -- which included only the 39 percent of Mexicans who have telephone service -- had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The pontiff is to celebrate another Mass Sunday before an expected crowd of 800,000 at a Mexican racetrack. He will conclude his visit to Mexico on Tuesday and fly to St. Louis, where he will meet with U.S. President Bill Clinton, address a youth rally and celebrate an indoor Mass. John Paul is expected to leave for Rome on Wednesday.

CNN's Lucia Newman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.