Pope Hailed by Adoring Crowds in Mexico City

Pope John Paul II flew into the open arms of an adoring Mexico on Friday, returning to the site of his first papal trip 20 years ago on a mission to recharge the Catholic Church in the Americas for the new millennium.

Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of this sprawling capital after waiting for hours--and some for days--to catch a glimpse of el Papa. At one point, the crowd surged past the line of volunteers, almost blocking the street before motorcycle police pushed them back.

“I feel a joy that I’ve never felt before,” said Beatriz Jamaica, a 45-year-old housewife in the crowd in the center of the city. “Everyone’s very excited that he’s here again.”

It was the 78-year-old pope’s fourth and possibly final trip to Mexico, a country for which he holds tremendous affection--and which holds him in the kind of esteem one might reserve for a favorite uncle.

President Ernesto Zedillo and his wife greeted the pope at Mexico City’s airport, and the crowd of thousands waved flags and chanted in Spanish, “John Paul II, all the world loves you!”

On an unusually clear day for this polluted city, a mariachi band in typical black dress performed “Cielito Lindo”--”Pretty Little Sky”--as the pope slowly walked down the plane’s steps.

The president and his wife, Nilda Patricia, escorted the pope along a red carpet as he hunched over a cane and made his way to a speaking platform. Children shouted, “El Papa, El Papa, rah, rah, rah!”

“United we Mexicans greet you with joy and hope,” Zedillo said. “We receive you with our hearts in our hands.”

The pope responded: “It is for me the cause of enormous joy to find myself again in this blessed land.”

In downtown Mexico City, Mayor Cuauhtemoc Cardenas handed the pope the keys to the city. It was the first time the pope had received that honor, because despite the faith of its people, Mexico’s constitution was largely anticlerical until 1992. In fact, he was technically breaking the law during earlier trips by appearing in public in his religious robes.

At the airport, the pope read from a text he grasped with a trembling hand, the wind ruffling the pages. He stressed the Catholic roots of Mexico’s mixed Spanish-Indian culture, an implicit defense of the church against inroads by Protestants.

“It is not possible, then, to understand Mexico without the faith brought from Spain to these lands,” he said. He called Mexico’s Catholic Church “an integral and fundamental part of the soul of the nation.”

John Paul continued to the Nunciate, where he signed a declaration setting out the church’s goals in the Americas for the new millennium. A small group of cardinals applauded.

Although the text wasn’t released, he said the document should help the church “be the seed of unity and not the cause of division of humanity.”

Church officials also have said the document was expected to condemn the devastating effects of foreign debt on poor countries and an increasingly global market economy that the pope sees as a threat to people’s dignity. The pontiff has called for the debt to be forgiven or at least substantially reduced by 2000.

He will announce the new strategy this weekend at a Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where Catholics believe an olive-skinned Virgin Mary appeared to an Aztec peasant in 1531, helping convert thousands of polytheistic Indians to Roman Catholicism.

The pope planned to pray before the virgin’s image, which is said to have appeared on the peasant’s cloak and is preserved in the basilica.

Dozens of faithful were already waiting at the basilica as the pope touched down. Carlos Ramirez took his two little boys--ages 8 and 4--on a six-hour trek through the streets of Mexico City carrying a 7-foot crucifix and a statue of the virgin.

“I want to receive the blessing of the pope,” he said. “I brought my sons so they will follow the right path.”

The pilgrims arrived at the virgin’s basilica as a remarkably smog-free dawn broke over the city. Ramirez’s sons collapsed on the sidewalk. Ramirez covered them in blankets and lit a charcoal fire to keep them warm.

The pope also will celebrate Mass at a racetrack Sunday and hold a music-filled celebration at Mexico’s biggest soccer stadium on Monday.

On Tuesday, he heads to the United States and will meet with President Clinton in St. Louis. The Vatican has serious differences with the Clinton administration, particularly over the airstrikes against Iraq, its economic embargo of Cuba and support for abortion rights.

The pope said the biggest change since he first visited the United States 20 years ago was the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, leaving the United States as the only superpower.

“I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing,” he said. “That’s the way it is.”

It was the 85th trip for the aging pontiff, who says he is in the “sunset” of his life.

But in an airborne news conference Friday, the pope insisted he’s still enthusiastic about travel and hinted he would like to visit Russia and China.

He also addressed the simmering leftist rebellion in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas--despite assurances by the Mexican church that he would avoid explicitly commenting on an issue that is sensitive for Mexico’s government.

“There will be no solution without recognition that the indigenous people were the first owners of the land,” the pope told reporters.

He also stressed the need for dialogue and cautioned against transforming Marxist liberation theology into “indigenous theology,” a reference to teachings of some priests in southern Mexico whom critics have accused of fomenting rebellion.

Despite all the events planned for the pope’s five days in Mexico, this visit is far less demanding than previous ones so that he can get more rest. His slurred speech, trembling left hand and sometimes absent expression could be symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but the Vatican has never offered an explanation.