Asia remembers Pope as man of peace

Asia remembers Pope as man of peace

Paul Alexander, Associated Press

From political leaders to earthquake survivors, Asia mourned Pope John Paul II on Sunday, recalling a man committed to peace and reconciliation who was never able to fulfill his dreams of visiting communist China and Vietnam.

In Indonesia, Father Michael To led special prayers for the pope at Santa Maria Cathedral on Nias Island, just five days after it was devastated by a magnitude-8.7 earthquake that killed several hundred people.

Nias and other quake-hit islands off Sumatra are among the few Christian-majority areas in Indonesia, the world's biggest Muslim nation.

"Physically, he has gone, but his spirit still lives on among Catholics around the world," To said.

Tears flowed as people packed churches in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, where the pontiff drew a crowd estimated at 4 million during his second visit in 1995.

"Our people received the news of his death with a deep sense of grief and loss. He was a holy champion of the Filipino family," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, dressed in black, said as she sat by a photo showing her talking with the pope.

"The world will miss a great spiritual bridge among all nations that he touched and blessed with his gentle hand. The weak and oppressed will always remember their hero and advocate who sowed peace and love."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, an Anglican, described the pope as "a very significant political figure."

"The contribution that he made to the freeing of his native Poland, and what was set in train ultimately leading to the collapse of Soviet communism, is one of the more remarkable features of his life," Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

But that contribution made communist leaders in China and Vietnam wary of Pope John Paul II. Neither country has official ties with the Vatican and both refuse to recognize the pope's authority over the Catholic Church.

Nevertheless, many Chinese Catholics remain loyal to the Vatican and risk arrest by worshiping in unofficial churches.

As word of John Paul II's death spread slowly through China's capital, where congregations packed government-sanctioned churches, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao issued a statement expressing condolences.

"We hope under the leadership of the new pope, favorable conditions for improving China-Vatican relations can be made," he said.

Hong Kong Bishop Joseph Zen said the pope expressed great enthusiasm when he discussed visiting China. "He was like a child pleading with his mother, 'I really want to go to China,"' Zen told reporters.

In Vietnam, hundreds of people filed into the pews of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Hanoi during Sunday morning Mass, praying on their knees. Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung also extended Hanoi's condolences.

At St. Ignatius Church in Tokyo, worshipers recalled how moved they were when the pope, during a 1981 trip to Hiroshima, urged the world to remember the destructive impact of the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city.

"He put his all into working for peace," said church volunteer Kazuko Matsuda, 61. "When he spoke against war in Iraq, he thought of the people, of the children, who would be the victims of the air raids."

The Dalai Lama described the pope as a great spiritual leader in a message of condolence issued by his office in exile in the Himalayan resort town of Dharmsala in north India.

"Pope John Paul II was a man I held in high regard. His experience in Poland, then a communist country, and my own difficulties with communists, gave us a common ground," the Tibetan spiritual leader said in a statement.

In India's eastern city of Calcutta, nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, grieved in hushed prayers Sunday. Clad in customary white and blue bordered saris, some of the nuns wept as they knelt, heads bowed, wiping away tears.

"The pope endeared himself specially to the people of India by initiating the process to grant sainthood to Mother Teresa," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement. "He reached out beyond the Church and became an inspiration for many years to people of all faiths. Pope John Paul II came to symbolize the indomitable power and will to freedom for people the world over."

Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a Muslim, said he shared "grief with the Christian brothers of Pakistan and the world," adding that the pontiff had "rendered incredible services for peace."

"He was an enormously influential figure ... because his voice for freedom for the people in central and eastern Europe, his voice for peace in the Middle East and around the world was an incredibly powerful one," New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said.

"When the pope spoke on those issues, you knew he was expressing the hopes not only of the hundreds of millions of followers of the Roman Catholic Church but also of people around the world."