Pope urges young to spread faith

3 million hear Francis’ final Mass of World Youth Day

Pope Francis waves from his popemobile along the Copacabana beachfront on his way to celebrate the World Youth Day's closing Mass in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, July 28, 2013. Hundreds of thousands of young people slept under chilly skies in the white sand awaiting Francis' final Mass for WYD. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Pope Francis waves from his popemobile along the Copacabana beachfront on his way to celebrate the World Youth Day's closing Mass in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, July 28, 2013. Hundreds of thousands of young people slept under chilly skies in the white sand awaiting Francis' final Mass for WYD. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

RIO DE JANEIRO - An estimated 3 million people poured onto Rio’s Copacabana beach on Sunday for the final Mass of Pope Francis’ historic trip to his home continent, cheering the first Latin American 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.

By various measures, Francis’s first international trip since he was named pope this year was a success. The pontiff was greeted like a rockstar by attendees to a conference of Catholic youths. He urged people to combat corruption, a top grievance in the protests shaking Brazil, and called on bishops to focus on the pragmatic needs of congregants, shifting emphasis from the abuse scandals that have plagued the Vatican for years.

“If this trip is any indication, he’s off to a strong start at revitalizing the church,” said Andrew Chesnut, an expert on Latin American religions at Virginia Commonwealth University who went to Brazil to see the pope’s visit up close. “He’s been very astute on focusing on the everyday afflictions of the poor, taking a page from the evangelicals themselves.”

Nearly the entire 2.5-mile 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 T-shirts, flags and soccer jerseys into the pontiff’s open-sided car as he drove by. Francis worked the crowd, kissing babies, taking a sip of mate tea handed up to him and catching gifts on the fly.

Even the normally stern faced Vatican bodyguards let smiles slip as they jogged alongside Francis’ car, caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowd.

Many of the youths on hand for the Mass spent the night on the beach, an allnight slumber party to end the Catholic youth fest, with pilgrims wrapped in flags and sleeping bags to ward off the cold. They danced, prayed and sang - and waited in long lines in front of the armadas of portable bathrooms along the beachfront.

“We were dying of cold but it was worth it,” said Lucrecia Grillera, an 18-year-old from Cordoba, Argentina, where Francis lived for a time before becoming pope. “It was a tiring day, but it was a great experience.”

The Vatican said more than 3 million people were on hand for the Mass, based on information from World Youth Day organizers and local authorities who estimated two-thirds were from outside Rio. That was far higher than the 1 million at the last World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011 or the 850,000 at Toronto’s 2002 concluding Mass.

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 5 million people taking part. Third place among papal Masses now goes to Rome World Youth Day in the 2000 Jubilee year, when 2 million people participated. A similar number attended John Paul’s final Mass in Krakow, his Polish hometown, in 1979, during his first visit to his homeland as pope.

As if recalling that historic Mass, the pontiff said that the next World Youth Day will be held in Krakow, Poland, in 2016. A group of Polish attendees burst into jubilation, jumping up and down and hugging one another. It will be Poland’s second World Youth Day.

The presidents of Brazil, Francis’ native Argentina, Bolivia and Suriname were on hand for the Mass, as were the vice presidents of Uruguay and Panama. Receiving a special honor was a couple Francis met on Saturday after Mass at Rio’s cathedral; they had brought him their anencephalic baby daughter to be blessed. Francis invited them to participate in the offertory procession on Sunday, at which the father wore a T-shirt that read “Stop abortion.”

After Sunday’s Mass, Francis was meeting with the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as holding a thank-you audience with some of the 60,000 volunteers who organized the youth festival. He was leaving for Rome Sunday night.

“It was such an excellent week; everybody was in such good spirit, you could just feel a sense of peace,” said Denise da Silva, a Rio de Janeiro Catholic who was sitting alone on the beach Sunday morning, a Brazilian flag painted on her face. “I have never seen something here in Rio so marvelous as what we have just lived.”

According to census data, the number of Catholics in Brazil dipped from 125 million in 2000 to 123 million in 2010, with the church’s share of the total population dropping from 74 percent to 65 percent. During the same time period, the number of evangelical Protestants and Pentecostals jumped from 26 million to 42 million, increasing from 15 percent to 22 percent of the population in 2010.

“Francis is more simpatico than John Paul II, certainly more likable than Benedict, but transforming the church requires more than public relations gestures, appealing as they might be,” said Peter McDonough, a scholar of religion who has written widely on the Jesuits, comparing Francis with his predecessors. “It’s doubtful, aside from a positive bump in applications to the priesthood and perhaps a groundswell in confessions, that Pope Francis’ visit to Brazil will stem the loss of congregants to evangelical and other denominations or reverse the tide of secularization.”

Francis has spent the week emphasizing a core message: of the need for Catholics, lay and religious, to shake up the status quo and reach the faithful on the margins of society or risk losing them to rival churches.

Francis repeated that stirring message Sunday in his homily, saying he was counting on young Catholics in particular to be “missionary disciples” in spreading the faith.

“Bringing the Gospel is bringing God’s power to pluck up and break down evil and violence, to destroy and overthrow the barriers and selfishness, intolerance and hatred, so as to build a new world,” he said.

It seemed the message was getting through.

“I used to go to Mass every week but now I go every other week, if that,” said Larissa Miranda, a 20-year-old law student from rural Rio de Janeiro state who moved to the city two years ago. “But this event had made me realize that I need to get active again and get back to church every week.” Information for this article was contributed by Jenny Barchfi eld, Nicole Winfield, Marco Sibaja and Bradley Brooks of The Associated Press; and by David Biller of Bloomberg News; and by Simon

Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/29/2013

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