Pope Elevates Spanish Saints

An ailing but unusually spirited Pope John Paul II conferred sainthood on two priests and three nuns Sunday in this decreasingly Roman Catholic country, telling hundreds of thousands of spectators in downtown Madrid that they must remain true to their Christian roots.

On a 36-hour visit to Spain -- his first international trip in nearly nine months -- John Paul also warned of the dangers of war and urged unity instead of radical nationalism.

A massive youth rally Saturday and Sunday’s Mass and canonization ceremony captured the paradoxes of the pontiff’s mission here: He blessed a quintet of saints before a people who have largely strayed from their once-dominant church, and he prayed for peace before a government that resolutely supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Contradictions aside, the crowds who greeted the pope, who will turn 83 this month, exceeded organizers’ predictions and were full of enthusiasm, good cheer and an enormous number of young people from many parts of Spain and beyond.

“Do not break with your Christian roots!” the pope told Sunday’s listeners, reading forcefully in accented but intelligible Spanish. “Only [as Christians] will you be capable of contributing to the world and to Europe the cultural richness of your history.”

Dressed in a flowing golden surplice, he spoke from a huge white altar erected in the middle of Madrid’s Plaza de Colon, awash in a warm springtime sun. Hundreds of thousands of people filled four wide, leafy boulevards that intersect in the plaza, hoping for a glimpse of the pontiff but content, in many cases, to make do with viewing him on large video screens.

Spanish media estimated the crowd at 1 million. The king and queen of Spain, other members of the royal family, most of the government and a group of people who the church says have benefited from saints’ miracles were given front-row seats.

Above the plaza hung large paintings of the Catholic Church’s five new saints, all of them Spanish religious figures from the early part of the 20th century.

One, Father Pedro Poveda, already had been declared a martyr by the church. He was one of thousands of clerics believed killed by Republican forces during Spain’s 1936-39 civil war. Church leaders then were often attacked because of their support for Gen. Francisco Franco, who eventually defeated the Republican government and imposed a fascist dictatorship that lasted nearly four decades until he died in 1975.

The other four new saints were Jose Maria Rubio, a Jesuit priest who worked with the poor in Madrid’s slums; Genoveva Torres, the one-legged founder of an order of nuns who gave shelter to abandoned women; Angela de la Cruz, founder of Sisters of the Company of the Cross, dedicated to the poor and sick; and Maravillas de Jesus, a Carmelite nun and renowned mystic who did social work.

Since the death of Franco, who required strict adherence to Catholic doctrine, and the return of democracy to Spain, the church has lost much of its influence as the country has modernized and become more secular.

Polls show that an estimated 85% of Spaniards identify themselves as Catholic, but only a quarter or so say they go to church. Spaniards often say they are Catholic “on paper” -- they attend baptisms and religious weddings, but they also divorce, use birth control and disregard other preachings from the Holy See.

The Vatican was hoping to reinvigorate Spain’s Catholicism with the pope’s appearance and the naming of the new saints.

“His word is the truth, the real truth, and it is what calls us all together,” said Juan Rodriguez, 52, a government office worker who, with a bad leg and a cane, traveled half an hour from a Madrid suburb to join the crowds near the Plaza de Colon on Sunday.

“Just hearing him is what is important,” he said.

The pope has named more saints than any of his predecessors. To become a saint, a candidate must have been responsible for miracles, although in the case of martyrs, no miracles are necessary.

The journey to Spain was the pope’s first outside Italy since he visited his Polish homeland in August. It was his 99th international trip in a papacy of nearly 25 years, one of the longest.

Vatican watchers say the pope has recently appeared to be in better health despite his many ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, and there were moments during this trip when he clearly was enjoying himself. He joked with the crowd Saturday and endured a three-hour ceremony Sunday, flagging only at the end.

The main event Saturday was an open-air youth rally. Attendance at a military air base on the outskirts of Madrid was more than double organizers’ predictions, and the festival of prayer and music took a Woodstock-like turn as the pope was cheered relentlessly.

“Dear young people, you well know how worried I am about peace in the world,” he said. “The spiral of violence, terrorism and war provokes, even in our day, hatred and death. Peace is, above all, a gift from above that we must seek with insistence.

“Be artisans of peace,” he told the chanting, emotional crowd. “Respond to blind violence and inhuman hatred with the fascinating power of love. Conquer hostility with the force of forgiveness. Shun all forms of exasperated nationalism, racism and intolerance.”

While the last comments apparently referred to Spain’s long struggle with the Basque independence movement, in which hundreds of people have been killed in more than 30 years of strife, the repeated references to war alluded to the just-ended conflict in Iraq.

John Paul adamantly opposed the use of force to topple Saddam Hussein, judging the U.S.-led campaign an “unjust war” that would claim too many civilian lives. But Spain’s right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, was among the nations that supported the Bush administration’s effort -- despite almost unanimous public opposition in this country. However, according to a Vatican spokesman, the pope did not specifically raise the issue of Iraq in his private meetings with Aznar.