In his homily the Pope offered special thoughts for those priests who are now sick, or lonely, or “suffering through various difficulties.” He also added a word for those priests “who, for diverse circumstances, no longer exercise their priestly ministry,” and said that he kept them in his prayer.

Over 2,000 priests had come to Rome, at the invitation of the Congregation for the Clergy, especially for the Jubilee for priests, which included events stretching from May 14-18. (At least 250 received some financial help from the Vatican so that they could make the trip.) Several thousand more—including many priests from Rome itself—joined the Holy Father for the concluding liturgical celebration. In his homily at the final Mass, Pope John Paul insisted that every priest should struggle to offer “exemplary witness” to the faith, and be prepared for martyrdom if that is necessary.

For those priests who participated in the entire Jubilee program, the most dramatic moments came on the evening of May 16, when they made the Stations of the Cross outdoors, in a field near the Tiber River. The priests, divided into different nationalities and linguistic groups, moved slowly through the 14 stations, which were marked by candles. Then they gathered to hear the Slovakian Cardinal Jan Chryzostom Korec tell the story of a priest who was imprisoned for 12 years under the Czech Communist regime.

During their Jubilee, the priests who traveled to Rome had opportunities to hear—and in many cases to speak personally with—Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State; Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (who had only recently been released from the hospital after a serious illness); and Cardinal Dario Castrillo Hoyos, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.

Because it was the Pope’s 80th birthday, the official Vatican newspaper carried a long series of greetings and plaudits for the Pontiff. Among the world leaders whose words of praise were printed in the May 18 issue of L’Osservatore Romano were: Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Mikhail Gorbachev, Kofi Annan, Lech Walesa, and Hosni Mubarak. The Holy Father also received congratulatory telegrams from the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan of Smolensk, who conveyed the greetings of the Patriarch of Moscow.

In the evening of May 18, the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed Haydn’s oratorio, the Creation, in a concert honoring Pope John Paul II on his birthday. At the end of the concert, the Holy Father offered some thoughts on Haydn’s work, and on the text upon which it is based: the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. The Pope allowed that the “mysterious and universal language of music” helped to give him “a singular experience—a spiritual and aesthetic meditation on the mystery of creation, which establishes the certainty of our common origin.”

After the Pope concluded his remarks, the orchestra and choir broke into the traditional Polish birthday song, “Sto Lat”—”May you live 100 years.” The Pope, clearly surprised and delighted by that gesture, paused again to give the performers his thanks.

The papal birthday also provided the occasion for a new set of articles about the Pope’s health. Although his physical condition is visibly deteriorating, Pope John Paul remains intellectually vigorous and alert, according to Vatican officials who work closely with him. They also report that he has lengthened the amount of time he devotes to personal prayer. The Pontiff now rises each morning at about 5 am, sources report; he prays in silence in his private chapel for about two hours before celebrating Mass there at 7:30, with a congregation of about 20-30 people each day.

Mehmet Ali Agca, who is serving a life sentence in an Italian prison for the March 13, 1981 shooting, recounted the events surrounding the shooting to RAI state television. The convicted gunman described his thoughts and plans in the moments just before the shooting. “The Pope had done his first swing,” Agca said, referring to tours around St. Peter’s Square which the Pope made in his open-topped car. But as the Pope’s car approached the spot where he was waiting, Agca said, he began to think about abandoning his plan. The Pontiff was facing away from him, he said, and he could not bring himself to shoot a man in the back. He claimed at that point he was thinking that he might walk away, “throw the gun into the Tiber [River],” and take a train to Zurich, Switzerland.

However, Agca continued, at that moment “I heard this loud applause; I saw the Pope in front of me, 50 feet away.” He also claimed that he felt “something was dragging me back,” and a voice was telling him, “You must do it. You must do it.” He waited until the Pope finished embracing a toddler in the crowd, then fired.

Agca insisted that he had acted alone. In a disjointed series of statements, he seemed to suggest that Italian authorities had encouraged him to invent a group of co-conspirators. Four men were charged by Italian investigators in connection with the attempted assassination, but two separate lengthy trials—one in the 1980s, another in the 1990s—ended in their acquittal.

Jubilee for journalists
Ancient message, modern means

As the Jubilee for journalists reached its dramatic high point on Sunday, June 4, Pope John Paul II assured a Vatican audience that “it is possible to be a true Christian and an excellent journalist at the same time,” despite the pressures of commercialism and ideology.

The four-day Jubilee for journalists, organized by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, drew about 2,000 reporters to Rome with their families. These participants gathered in the Paul VI auditorium to hear the Pope observe that their vocation as Christians should inform their approach. In fact, the Pontiff said, journalists have a “sacred duty” to use their powers of communication in ways which serve mankind, and in particular serve the needs of those who are neediest.

Journalists should never allow themselves to be guided solely by the desire to reach an ever-wider audience, the Holy Father continued. Nor should they focus simplistically on the need to spread more and more information, “without being mindful of the rights of others.” He explained that “no freedom, including the freedom of expression, is absolute.” Rather, the freedom of reporters should be understood in the context of service to the truth and to others.

In preparation for the journalists’ Jubilee observance, on May 30 the Pontifical Council for Social Communications released a new document on the ethics of involvement in the modern media. The new document, signed by the Council’s president, Archbishop John Foley, cautions that freedom of expression “is not an absolute norm.” Rather, the final goal of any work in the domain of public opinion should be service to the human person and the community.

The media should also avoid vulgarity, the document argues. “It is not enough to say that the media reflect popular tastes,” the statement says; the Pontifical Council argues that the media also influence public opinion, and those who work in the field have an obligation to elevate the level of public dialogue and entertainment. At a May 30 press conference where he introduced the statement to reporters, Archbishop Foley noted that some “unscrupulous” individuals “use the media for demagogic purposes,” promoting unjust situations and upholding oppressive regimes. The same immoral uses can be seen even in democratic countries, he continued, where skillful practitioners can use the means of social communication to manipulate public opinion. The solution to these problems, the Vatican document cautions, lies not in state control over the media, but in a greater recognition among media leaders of their moral responsibilities and their duty to serve the common good.

Some 50,000 migrants and itinerants gathered in Rome for the Jubilee observance on June 1-2. Among them were students, sailors, migrant workers, and even members of traveling circus groups. But the focus of the Jubilee also included the estimated 22 million people around the world who are homeless, displaced, or refugees. Archbishop Stephen Fumio Hamao, the president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerants, pointed out that the world’s homeless population is “far too numerous to participate in this celebration.”

The Jubilee Charter for the Rights of Refugees was presented to Pope John Paul II along with the Offertory gifts at the Mass in St. Peter’s Square. The Vatican pointed out that the charter listed many of the political rights accorded to refugees by international treaties, including some that are routinely ignored and may be difficult to enforce. The document was prepared with the help of groups involved in the care of displaced peoples, including the UN High Commission on Refugees.

In his homily at the Mass on Friday, the Holy Father denounced “discrimination” and “closed-minded attitudes” in contemporary society towards “the foreigner.” He told the diverse and colorful congregation, “Among you, there are migrants of various countries and continents; refugees who have fled from violent situations and who now ask that their basic rights be recognized; foreign students seeking to further their scientific and technological formation; sailors and aviators who work in the service of those who travel; tourists whose interest is to know new horizons and customs; nomads who, for centuries, have traversed the roads of the world; circus people who bring attractions and healthy entertainment to public places.” He continued: “To the Catholic Church, no one is a foreigner. Unfortunately, there still exist in the world closed-minded attitudes of rejection, which are due to unjustified fears and self-interest.” The Pope then preached “fraternity” and “the art of celebrating differences.”

Before the Mass, 80 Italian children released multi-colored balloons as a prayer was read “to overcome all divisions between cultures, ethnicities, and religions.” The liturgical celebration also featured the use of many different languages (including Tagalog, Swahili, and Tamil) and musical instruments (guitars, tambourines, and pan pipes). The celebration also included sailors who left the Israeli port of Haifa on May 12 for a maritime pilgrimage from Jerusalem to Rome, following the path of St. Peter.

An hour after the departure of the Pope and the 50,000 faithful who took part in that concluding celebration, a group of demonstrators converged on the Vatican. About 200 people—mostly from India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka —unfurled banners asking for the extension of residence permits in Italy. “Conscious of what the Church in Italy had already done and still does for those in this situation,” explained Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, “the group of demonstrators wanted to present to the Vatican a document containing their requests.”

Bishop Martin, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that Church officials are “clearly not satisfied” with the scant progress that has been made toward the goal of obtaining real relief of Third World debts during this Jubilee year. At a press conference that was held in Rome, but broadcast simultaneously in Washington, Manila, and Johannesburg, the Vatican official stressed that underdeveloped countries have not yet benefited from the relief which some international leaders have promised. “We cannot set up a just international system if countries do not keep their word,” he observed.

Bishop Martin went on to say that the mere forgiveness of debt, in itself, would not be enough to bring underdeveloped nations into the international system as equal partners. The wealthier nations must also guarantee free access to trade markets, he said.

One week earlier, Pope John Paul had issued a similar call for action on the debt question. On May 25, the Pope accepted the diplomatic credentials of new ambassadors from New Zealand, Kuwait, the Republic of Congo, and Ghana. He told them that efforts to relieve Third World debt should be part of a “profound reflection” on the possibility of “reconsidering the organization of the world economy.” As things stand, he continued, the global economy places heavy burdens on the most impoverished countries, and increases the profits of the wealthy nations. He also said that the countries which produce raw materials are not adequately paid for their products.

Efforts to ease the debt burden, the Pope said, should be accompanied by new policies in the needy countries. Those countries should be led by politicians who can act “in a disinterested manner, and make these countries more autonomous.” The new leadership must ensure that these countries do not remain dependent on the wealthy nations, he said. They must build up the local infrastructure, and encourage local business, so that their countries can become equal partners on the international scene.

The Holy Father mentioned the needs of African countries in particular. Noting that Africa’s people have been “sorely tested by the conflicts which have had such tragic consequences for the civilian populations,” he said that Africa would need special help from the international community.

Cardinal Poupard, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, told an audience of about 350 in the Vatican synod hall that the search for truth in all forms should hold a high priority in any human society. On the other hand, the cardinal warned that current scientific research faces two sorts of danger.

The first danger, Cardinal Poupard said, is the tendency to believe that “everything is permissible” in the quest for scientific knowledge. That tendency, he added, has contributed to the temptation to “dominate all aspects of human existence by means of technological progress.” He cited genetic manipulation, artificial reproduction, and experimentation on human embryos as examples of research that has crossed the moral boundaries.