Pope calls on Latin Americans to stand by the Church (Roundup)

May 13, 2007, 0:39 GMT

Aparecida do Norte, Brazil - Pope Benedict XVI called Saturday on Latin Americans to maintain their 'sense of belonging to the church,' on the eve of the opening in Brazil of a major conference of the region's bishops.

'In the Catholic Church we find all that is good, all that gives grounds for security and consolation,' the pope said in Spanish, in a speech delivered mostly in Portuguese.

The pontiff spoke before religious people, deacons and seminarians gathered to greet him in the cathedral of Aparecida, the largest pilgrimage site in Latin America, 160 kilometres east of Sao Paulo.

Benedict's five-day pastoral visit to Brazil, the most populous Roman Catholic country in the world, is set to end Sunday, after he opens the Fifth General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The gathering is expected to address the growing exodus of Catholics, mainly to Pentecostal Protestant churches that are expanding rapidly across the region.

'Anyone who accepts Christ, 'the way, the truth and the life,' in his totality, is assured of peace and happiness, in this life and in the next,' Benedict said. 'It is worth being faithful. It is worth persevering in our faith.'

The speech was heard in the pews and outside the cathedral by some 35,000 people, many of whom had waited more than 24 hours to get a chance to pray the rosary with Benedict.

After praying the rosary with the enthusiastic audience, he exhorted in Portuguese for greater efforts to evangelize.

Benedict invited Catholics 'to become profoundly missionary and to bring the good news of the gospel to every point of the compass in Latin America and in the world.'

In an atmosphere reminiscent of football games, he was acclaimed by religious people who shouted his name in Portuguese - 'Bento, Bento!' - to a tune similar to that used by the fans of the popular club Flamengo to cheer on their team.

The pope's reference to evangelization was evidence of the Catholic Church's preoccupation with the exodus of faithful in Brazil and across Latin America, which holds nearly half of the world's estimated 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.

The proportion of Pentecostals in Brazil has risen from 6.6 per cent in 1980, when the late pope John Paul II first travelled to the country, to close to 17.3 per cent in 2003, according to a recent estimate.

In turn, the proportion of Catholics in Brazil is thought to have fallen from more 90 per cent to 73 per cent, with some estimates falling as low as 64 per cent.

On Saturday, Benedict visited a drug rehabilitation centre and pledged 100,000 dollars of his own money toward the centre's work.

'Society expects you to spread this precious gift of health among your friends and all the members of the community,' the pope told recovering addicts at the Fazenda da Esperanca (Estate of Hope), near the town of Guaratingueta.

The founder of Fazenda da Esperanca, Hans Stapel, said that the money donated by the pope will be used toward a debt of 1 million dollars that the institution accrued over in recent months.

'It was an extraordinary gift. With all the debt I have, it is really a cause for hope. I hope many follow the pope's good example, because we need more generous people like him,' said the German Franciscan friar, according to the online edition of the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.

Benedict was greeted in a festive atmosphere by Stapel and by thousands of enthusiastic supporters, including some 1,500 of the centre's patients.

Stapel - who as a young man studied philosophy with fellow German Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope - founded the centre in 1983 based on spirituality, work, communal life and no medication. Since Fazenda da Esperanca - a centre with a reported 80 per cent success rate - was founded, 42 other centres based on the same model have been established around the world.

Benedict ignored security measures to approach the recovering addicts, in an unexpected move that alarmed security agents and even Stapel.

'Police tried to stop him, and I did not agree either. But the pope is an authority. He can do whatever he wants,' Stapel told reporters.

Later, Benedict again ignored security protocols by rolling down the windows of his bullet-proof 'popemobile,' seeking closer contact with the faithful as he travelled through Aparecida.

Early Sunday, Benedict is to celebrate an open-air mass in front of the basilica, where 500,000 people are expected.