VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II appeared briefly at his apartment window to bless tens of thousands of pilgrims in St Peter`s Square on Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week of Easter.
The crowd of around 50,000 pilgrims erupted into lengthy applause as a visibly tired pope, who leaned noticeably to his right, blessed them with a palm branch.
Many in the crowd waved back at the pope with their own palm branches, a symbol of an annual renewal of their Christian faith, but many others simply stood and wept, moved by the sight the frail pontiff who remained seated at the window for around a minute.
Shortly before, a Vatican aide, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, told pilgrims the pope had followed the lengthy ceremony on television in his apartment.
"We are happy to have seen him. But we know that without doubt it is one of the last times," said Jacques Bosconi, a tourist from Montoban, in southwest France.
It was the first time in his 26-year pontificate that the pope had missed mass for Palm Sunday, which commemorates Christ`s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, hailed by a crowd waving palm branches, before his eventual betrayal, Crucifixion and Resurrection. It is an occasion when the Church urges Catholics to renew their faith.
The pope`s place at the ceremony was taken by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Vicar of Rome, who spoke to the congregation of John Paul II`s tiredness.
Ruini said the Cross on which Christ was crucified was a source of "ever-renewing energy, that which shines from the exploits of the Saints and which has made fertile the story of the Church, that which today can be seen with a special clarity on the weary face of the Holy Father".
03/20/2005 11:49 GMT