Excerpts from selected publications

Bogus Tickets Pushed for Mexico Visit

FOX NEWS, Jan. 6—“No one, absolutely no one, should pay one centavo [for tickets] to see the Pope,” a spokesman for the archbishop of Mexico City told Reuters News Service, according to a television report.

Noting that Pope John Paul II arrives Jan. 22 for a four day visit, Fox News said, “unidentified individuals have been doing a brisk trade in ‘tickets’ for several large-scale events over which the Pope will preside, but the Church insisted Tuesday that any such sales were totally illegal.”

It cited the Mexican media as its source. “The visit will end on Jan. 26, when the Pope returns to the Vatican after a brief stop in the U.S. city of Saint Louis, Missouri,” it reminded viewers.

News Reports Praise Pope's Call for Peace

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Reuters Jan. 1-Wire reports praised Pope John Paul II for applying lessons about human rights from his personal past to the present situation of the world—and to the future—in his World Peace Day remarks Jan. 1.

The Pope “has seen much of the suffering he described” in his remarks, wrote Associated Press reporter Ellen Knickmeyer.

“The smoke from the chimneys of Auschwitz was visible from the foothills around his boyhood home in Poland. Father [Maximillian] Kolbe and Sister [Edith] Stein, a Jewish-born convert, were Auschwitz victims. The Roman Catholic Church elevated them to sainthood” during Pope John Paul II's pontificate.

She said that the Pope saw hope for the next 100 years in the lessons of the century that is all but past. Reuters, in its account, added that “the globe trotting Pope” has been a “tireless crusader for human rights and the poor during his reign.”

The report also recalled that the Holy Father, “began last year by visiting communist Cuba on a ground-breaking trip that led to the release of hundreds of political prisoners.”