LOSANGELES—On his recent visit to Mexico City, as part of his Jan. 25 “Encounter with All Generations,” Pope John Paul II spoke directly to international audiences using innovative technology. In return, a message of solidarity from the U.S. was beamed to the Holy Father.

Two speakers representing Los Angeles and all of North America spoke to the Pope live by satellite. Similar video links sent messages to the event in Mexico City's Azteca Stadium from Lima, Peru; Caracas, Venezuela; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The first of two North American speakers, Jay Dunlap, communications director of the Legionaries of Christ, said solidarity “marvelously depicts” something the Holy Father is “telling us with this Encounter. . . . Love, human and Christian love, is the way to resolve the problems of poverty which afflict our American continent.”

The second, Moira Vogel, co-director of the Challenge Task Force on Chastity, thanked the Pontiff for “inspiring in us the realization that we are all members of one family on pilgrimage together to the house of the Father who awaits us.”

The two spoke from the Pasadena Center in Pasadena, Calif., where more than a thousand participants gathered to witness and join the event, which was sponsored by the Newman Center at Caltech University and Hombre Nuevo Catholic Evangelization Center. (Staff)