Pope’s Next Stop Papua New Guinea

After drawing his largest crowd ever on Sunday, Pope John Paul II left today for Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea - the second stop on his four-nation, 11-day pilgrimage through Asia.

In his farewell remarks in Manila, the pope said, “Christ is working … for a new springtime of Christianity in this continent.”

Vatican officials estimated the crowd at Sunday’s Mass was between 2 million and 5 million, but its sheer size defied any accurate measure. The crowd clearly was larger than the 2 million people who attended the pope’s final Mass in Krakow, his Polish hometown, in 1979 during his first visit to his homeland as pope.