Pontiff, 60,000 at Vatican Open Holy Week Services

Pope John Paul II led the world’s more than 800 million Roman Catholics in Palm Sunday ceremonies, beginning Holy Week services marking the passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus.

The Pope, dressed in red vestments and flanked by dozens of priests, bishops and cardinals, presided at a colorful procession in St. Peter’s Square to celebrate Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem the week before he died.

More than 60,000 people in the square facing the largest church in Christendom sang and waved palm and olive branches. The Pope blessed the branches at the base of the 2,000-year-old Egyptian obelisk at the center of the square.

In Jerusalem, Palestinian Christians led throngs of pilgrims from around the world down the steep slopes of the biblical Mount of Olives to the walled Old City in a traditional Palm Sunday procession.

Girls in frilly pink dresses and Boy Scouts carrying flags sang “hosanna” and waved small olive and palm branches during the two-hour procession. According to the Gospel, Jesus’ followers spread palm branches in his path when he rode into the city 2,000 years ago.

Clergymen, nuns, scout troops from nearby Arab villages and tourists trekked to services at St. Anne’s Church in the Old City.

Mounted Israeli policemen barred traffic on the road into Jerusalem. Border troops with submachine guns watched from hilltops for possible guerrilla attacks as church bells rang.

Tourism officials said that far fewer Easter pilgrims were in Jerusalem than last year, apparently because of a recent spate of terrorist attacks on tourists in Europe.

Palm Sunday starts the busiest and most significant week in the church’s liturgical calendar.

On Holy Thursday, the Pope will say a morning Mass in which he will bless oils to be used in sacraments. On Good Friday evening, he will preside at a candlelight procession called the Way of the Cross around the ruins of Rome’s Colosseum.

On Sunday, the church’s most important feast, he will deliver a message and blessing--”Urbi et Orbi,” to the city and the world--from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.