Pope Marks His 80th Birthday With Clergy, Cake and Song

Thanking God for letting him reach another milestone, Pope John Paul II marked his 80th birthday Thursday by celebrating Mass with thousands of priests, sharing lobster and cake with cardinals and singing songs with fellow Poles.

“Long live the pope!” cheered thousands of well-wishers as John Paul passed through St. Peter’s Square in his open-top white “popemobile.”

John Paul’s public day began with an affectionate greeting from a top Vatican prelate on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“We feel guided by a man of God who has won love and respect beyond any human barrier,” Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia said in the name of the more than 6,000 priests from around the world who accepted the pope’s invitation to help celebrate the birthday Mass.

John Paul added his own “hymn of gratitude to the father of life, who allows me today to celebrate the Eucharist with you with the exultation of the perennial youth of the spirit on the occasion of my 80th birthday.”

At one point, the pontiff, whose staunch support of Poland’s Solidarity labor movement is credited with helping bring about the demise of Soviet bloc communism, seemed to be acknowledging his role in history. God, he said, wanted to link his existence as priest, bishop and pope to being a “witness to the love of God for all humanity in these times of ours.”