Pope draws 3 million in Rio
Final mass of World Youth Day is joyful affair
RIO DE JANEIRO An estimated three million people poured onto Rio’s Copacabana beach Sunday for the final mass of Pope Francis’s historic trip to his home continent, cheering the pope in one of the biggest turnouts for a papal mass in recent history.
Speaking from a white stage and looking out over the enormous crowd, Francis urged young Catholics to go out and spread their faith “to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent.
“The church needs you, your enthusiasm, your creativity and the joy that is so characteristic of you,” he said to applause in his final homily of World Youth Day festivities.
Later Sunday, he issued a pointed message to the region’s bishops, telling them to better look out for their flocks and put an end to the “clerical” culture that places priests on a pedestal — often with the “sinful complicity” of lay Catholics who hold clergy in such high esteem.
The Pope’s trip, which ended Sunday, was hailed as a success by the Vatican, pilgrims and everyday Brazilians alike. His non-stop agenda was followed live on television for all seven days, his good nature and modesty charming a nation that counts more Catholics than any other.
“It was great to see the Pope on his continent,,” said Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.
Nearly the entire four-kilometre crescent of Copacabana’s broad beach overflowed with flag-waving faithful, some of them taking an early morning dip in the Atlantic and others tossing Tshirts, flags and soccer jerseys into the pontiff ’s opensided car as he drove by. Francis worked the crowd, kissing babies, taking a sip of mate tea and catching gifts on the fly.
Even the normally sternfaced Vatican bodyguards let smiles slip as they jogged alongside Francis’s car, caught up in the crowd’s enthusiasm.
The numbers clearly overwhelmed the area’s services: The stench of garbage and human waste hung in Rio’s humid air, and the beach and adjoining chic Atlantic Avenue looked like an improvised refugee camp plunked down in the middle of one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Copacabana’s famous mosaic sidewalks were strewn with trampled cardboard, plastic bags, empty water bottles and cookie wrappers as trash collectors in orange uniforms tried to restore order.
“You’d think they could at least put their garbage in all the bins,” said Jose da Silva, a 75-year-old retired farm worker who supplements his meagre income by collecting empty cans for recycling. “I’m also pretty surprised that people who call themselves Christians would throw away all this food.”
Many youngsters on hand for the mass spent the night on the beach, an all-night slumber party to end the Catholic youth fest, with pilgrims wrapped in flags and sleeping bags to ward off the cold.
“We were dying of cold, but it was worth it,” said Lucrecia Grillera, 18, from Cordoba, Argentina, where Francis lived for a time. “It was a tiring day, but it was a great experience.”
The Vatican said more than three million people were at the mass, based on information from World Youth Day organizers and local authorities. That was higher than the one million at the last World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011 or the 850,000 at Toronto in 2002.
Only Pope John Paul II’s mass during his 1995 visit to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, topped Rio’s numbers, with an estimated five million people taking part. Third place among papal masses goes to Rome’s World Youth Day in the 2000 Jubilee year, when two million people participated. A similar number attended John Paul’s mass in Krakow, his Polish hometown, in 1979.
Francis announced Sunday that the next World Youth Day would be in Krakow in 2016.