GUATEMALA CITY, July 30 -- Pope John Paul II canonized Central America's first saint today, a 17th century Franciscan brother who ministered to Guatemala's impoverished Indians.
The ailing 82-year-old pope, whose voice began strong but deteriorated to barely audible mumbling during the 2 1/2-hour Mass, said that granting sainthood to the Spanish missionary, Pedro de San Jose Betancur, represented "an urgent appeal to practice mercy in modern society, especially when so many are hoping for a helping hand."
In a 23-minute homily to a crowd of several hundred thousand people, he called for justice and respect for "the least of my brethren" in a country plagued by extreme poverty, government corruption and one of the world's most severe disparities in income. "You deserve all respect and have the right to fulfill yourselves completely, in justice, development and peace," said the pope, addressing the indigenous people who make up nearly two-thirds of this country's 12 million residents.
The pope's message of social justice was well received by the crowd, a sea of screaming, cheering, flag-waving people that filled the grass, the dirt and the grandstand of a horse-racing track where the Mass was held. The crowd began cheering as soon as the locally made popemobile, a pickup truck fitted with a glass cabin in the back, entered the facility and did a slow loop around the track.
Screams of "John Paul II, the whole world loves you!" erupted as the pope was wheeled onto the altar and settled gingerly into a high-backed wooden chair.
Many people had spent the night waiting in the rain, then stood pressed together chest-to-back as the heat rose to nearly 90 degrees. The pope and the leaders of all seven countries in the region were largely shaded by the roof of a huge altar built for the ceremony. But in the crowd, dozens of firefighters with stretchers scurried to carry away those who had fainted in the midday sun, including an elderly woman in a wheelchair and a young priest in his robes.
But even those who had no shelter said the discomfort was well worth the chance to hear the pope's call to "practice mercy heroically with the lowliest and the most deprived."
"Here in Guatemala because we wear indigenous clothes, sometimes people discriminate against us," said Juana Ayash, a seamstress who traveled six hours from the western highlands to stand at the Mass. "But it doesn't matter to the pope who we are -- he loves us."
By most estimates, nearly 85 percent of Guatemalans live in poverty. It is worse among the indigenous people. In 1999, the U.S. government said 67 percent of indigenous children under the age of 5 were chronically malnourished.
The U.N. Development Program says 46 percent of the country's wealth is controlled by 10 percent of the population. The World Bank says income inequality is the world's third worst, better only than Brazil and Pakistan. That inequality was one of the causes of Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996.
After the Mass ended, completing the pope's third visit to Guatemala, he lingered for nearly half an hour. He waved as aides wheeled him slowly across the stage. "Guatemala, I love you in my heart," he said, loud and clear, before he left for Mexico, the last stop on his 11-day trip.