Pope Addresses Venezuelans on Education, Sexuality

Encouraged by an uninhibited Latin welcome to this oil center of petroleum-rich Venezuela, Pope John Paul II conducted his second heavily attended Mass of the day here Sunday, calling for religious education in public schools as well as church schools.

At a twilight Mass for hundreds of thousands, he said, “Evangelical education should not only be taught in religious schools; it should be taught in all schools without distinction.”

At an earlier Mass for an estimated million worshipers in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, the Pope dwelt on another of his favorite themes: the church’s view of sin in human sexuality.

To a nation that legalized divorce in the 19th Century and that now has substantial numbers of unmarried couples, children born out of wedlock and illegal abortions, the pontiff spoke forcefully and with visible emotion.

“Fight against the plague of divorce, which ruins families and so negatively affects the education of children,” John Paul said in Spanish. “Remember that never is it right to snuff out a human life with abortion or euthanasia.”

He asserted that “contraception and sterilization for contraceptive ends are always gravely wrong.”

Earlier in the day, the Poland-born Pope appeared beaming like a beardless, white-robed Santa Claus at a meeting with members of the Venezuelan Polish community in a huge modern theater in Caracas, tapping his feet to some of their songs and singing along with them the stirring anthem “Mary Queen of Poland.”

When community leader Ryszard Urbanski told him that “the Poles in Venezuela await the independence and full freedom of their homeland,” the one-time cardinal of Krakow replied:

“These words unite you with your countrymen in Poland who aspire for the good, for freedom and for self-government.”

Meanwhile, officials accompanying the Pope hinted that he may visit Cuba at some point in the future.

A leading Vatican churchman who asked not to be identified said, “I could foresee the Pope making a stopover in Havana during some future trip” to Latin America.

He and others in the papal entourage responded to questions raised by a report that Bishop James Malone, president of the U.S. Episcopal Conference, said upon his return from Havana last week that Cuban President Fidel Castro had issued an invitation to the Pope.

The Vatican officials said they were not aware of the invitation but suggested that John Paul would respond positively if one were extended.