Suggesting that non-Catholics must address their own failures over the course of history, the pontiff also acknowledged that a church document on anti-Semitism promised 10 years ago is still far from complete.
Before his plane touched down in Brazil, the world's biggest Roman Catholic country, the pope told reporters he didn't see the need to speed up possible canonization of Mother Teresa.
The pope, who has been on the road frequently in recent months despite his increasingly delicate health, plans to preach family values to a vast but straying Brazilian flock during his four-day visit.
In a strongly worded speech at Galeao Air Base in Rio's Guanabara Bay, he cited Brazil's yawning gap between rich and poor as a cause of its social problems.
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| AP PHOTO A group of street children wake up near the metropolitan Cathedral in Rio de Janeiro yesterday, where Pope John Paul II will offer a mass on Saturday. |
His feeble voice getting stronger as he went along, John Paul made a special mention of Afro-Brazilians and native Indians, who "inject in Brazilian culture a deep sense of family, of respect for their ancestors."
During his visit, his third to the country, the pope also will lead ceremonies for the Roman Catholic Church's World Meeting of Families.
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso met the 77-year-old pope as his plane landed in mid-afternoon at the air base. A chorus of children waved green and yellow Brazilian flags and sang "A Bencao, Joao de Deus," Portuguese for "Bless Us, John of God."
John Paul emerged from the plane in white robes, holding a handrail as he slowly descended the stairway beneath clear skies and a hot sun. He stopped halfway down to wave at well-wishers. When he reached the tarmac he was handed a silver-headed cane.
Cardoso shook hands and embraced the pope, who then greeted Cardoso's wife Ruth and a number of Brazilian cardinals. Cardoso helped the pontiff to a dais where he delivered the first of eight speeches during his visit.
He did not kiss the ground as he has in the past because of concerns for his frail condition.
Earlier yesterday, John Paul addressed the French church's decision this week to ask forgiveness for failing to intervene to prevent Jews from being shipped to death camps half a century ago.
"What is interesting is that it is always the pope and the Catholic Church who asked forgiveness while others remained silent. Maybe that is as it should be," John Paul told reporters.
Papal spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls later said the pope's statements were intended in general terms and did not specifically refer to the Holocaust.
In 1987, after receiving Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, who has long concealed his service in the German army during the war, John Paul promised Jewish leaders that he would prepare a document on the theological history of anti-Semitism within the Catholic Church. The document is to examine ways in which positions or attitudes within the church may have set the stage for the Holocaust.
But, the pope acknowledged yesterday, the paper is not close to being released. The paper's conclusions, he said, will depend on the opinions of Catholic theologians meeting at the Vatican this month to discuss the Christian roots of anti-Semitism.
The "attitudes at the time of the Holocaust are key," John Paul said. "One mustn't forget there were other holocausts," he added, without elaborating.
Navarro, asked which other holocausts the pope was referring to, recalled the pope's depiction in Poland several years ago of the large numbers of "unborn children" as a holocaust. The reference was to abortion.
Jews and others have in the past charged that the pope during World War II, Pius XII, did not do enough to prevent the Nazi genocide. But John Paul has repeatedly defended his predecessor.
Also yesterday, John Paul quashed speculatin that the church might expedite possible sainthood for Mother Teresa. When she died last month, many speculated that the church would make an exception to rules that call for a five-year wait after death before the process of canonization can begin.
"I think it is necessary to follow the normal way," the pope said.
Ruddy-faced and firm of voice despite an accentuated tremor in his left hand, John Paul will speak about abortion, divorce and birth control during his visit. Schools and government offices closed early yesterday and police blocked off streets in downtown Rio to welcome the pontiff.
As bells toll from 20 historic churches in this colonial-era capital, the pope was to parade through the heart of Rio behind the bulletproof glass of the popemobile. He was then to switch cars and head for the residence of Rio's Cardinal Eugenio Sales, on nearby Sumare mountain.
With Rio's reputation for street violence, the pope's safety is a key concern. The city has prepared the biggest security operation since the 1992 Earth Summit environmental conference, when more than 100 world leaders came to Rio.
Police took up positions in 29 of the city's more than 600 "favelas," or hillside slums, in an effort to suppress the violent turf wars between drug gangs - at least until the pope returns to Rome on Sunday. Cardinal Sales' residence on Sumare mountain, once a bucolic retreat overlooking the city, now sits amid seven of Rio's most dangerous slums.
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