Pope’s Asian travels drew millions — including protesters, one assassin

In his 26-year papacy Pope John Paul II was a frequent visitor to Asia, making seven visits during which he once drew a crowd of five million for Mass, but also faced protests and even a bungled assassination attempt.

Though the Pope waited more than two years after his 1978 election as pontiff to visit Asia — it was his ninth trip outside Italy and came after he had been to Africa, the United States and Latin America — Pope John Paul II’s regular returns suggested a love for the region that was widely reciprocated.

Of 129 independent states he visited during his 104 papal journeys outside Italy, which saw him clock up more than one million air miles, 15 of them were in Asia, although China was a significant omission.

Perhaps his most momentous stop-off was in January 1995 in Asia’s biggest Catholic country, the Philippines, when he held a closing Mass at the 10th World Youth Day in front of a five million-strong crowd in the capital Manila.

Filipinos had long had a special relationship with Pope John Paul II, whose first visit to the country in February 1981 is credited with helping inspire the People Power Revolution which ousted the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos five years later.

Although he never openly criticized the regime, he made it very clear how he felt during a speech at a lavish dinner in the presidential palace in which he said human rights violations could never be justified and called on the country’s leaders to introduce reforms.

The Philippines Church’s subsequent role in unseating Marcos was crucial. Manila’s then Cardinal Jaime Sin, who was known to have been very close to the Pope, said Monday that the Pope had told him People Power was part of the Church’s mission. "It was our duty to pursue freedom, restore justice and defend the poor and oppressed," he said.

Pope John Paul II also made a point of traveling to non-Christian countries, heading twice to Hindu India and Confucian South Korea, as well as visiting predominantly Muslim nations Indonesia and Pakistan, and Buddhist Thailand and Japan.

Governments and leaders of all faiths always gave him a warm welcome, but not everyone shared the goodwill.

After a highly successful 12-day trip to India 1986, during which he called on Mother Teresa at the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity order which she founded in Calcutta, his return in 1999 for the Asian Synod stirred controversy.

Hindu nationalists demanded a papal apology for alleged Christian atrocities and religious conversions by missionaries in the country.

"The Pope did not apologize because the church did not find the need for an apology," recalled Father Dominic Emmanuel, spokesman for Delhi Catholic Church. "But he had no bitter feelings towards anybody." — AFP