World

Easter Celebrated

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 23, 2000 / 11:40 AM EDT / CBS

Thousands of pilgrims thronged the alleyways of Jerusalem's Old City on their way to Easter mass on Sunday at the holiest site in Christianity.

In Rome, Pope John Paul II urged humanity on Sunday to defend peace and human rights and rid the world of racism, poverty and xenophobia.

The 79-year-old Pope made the appeal in his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message just before he read Easter greetings to the world in 61 languages.

The Archbishop of Canterbury used his Easter Day sermon to warn against the seductive powers of our Internet-oriented society, according to CBS News Reporter Pamela McCall.

Dr. George Carey said power, success, fame and money should not blind people to the important things in life. He says the dot.com society is associated with transitory, paltry things. He also warned of fixating on brand images and logos, unless it's the Cross, the icon of Christianity. In his sermon at Canterbury Cathedral, he urged people to look to spiritual values for guidance, instead of the stock market.

Franciscan monks go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

A crowd of tourists crammed into the cavernous Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, revered as the site of Jesus's burial and resurrection, where they swabbed themselves with holy water.

Moslem caretakers, the hereditary keyholders of the church, harried the visitors from altar to altar with cries in German of "Schnell, schnell!" [quick, quick].

"It's a mob scene," said Caroline Gibson from Alabama. "It would be thought-provoking and spiritual, but the crowds are pressing on you."

"There was a lot of pushing and shoving and some little old ladies falling down," added her husband Pete. "It was worth it, though."

A crowd estimated at more than 100,000 packed St Peter's Square in Rome and flowed over into surrounding streets to attend the Pontiff's Easter Sunday mass, capping a hectic Holy Week of liturgical activities that tested his stamina.

Millions more in 60 countries watched the Pope live on television.

"Lord Jesus, our peace, word made flesh 2000 years ago, who by rising from the dead have conquered evil and sin, grant the human family of the third millennium a just and lasting peace," he said.

The Pope, who turns 80 next month, looked tired at times as he led the world's one billion Roman Catholics in the 22nd Easter of his pontificate. His voice trembled a bit and he sometimes seemed short of breath.

Jean-Marie Lustiger, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, told a French newspaper on Sunday that John Paul was suffering from a progressive paralysis which was making him a prisoner in his own body.

"One knows that his ilness is leading to a progressive paralysis of the body, but his spiritual faculties remain intact," Lustiger was quoted as saying.

But he dismissed recent speculation that John Paul might become the first pontiff for more than 700 years to abdicate voluntarily.

Jerusalem's Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah called for an end to inter-religious conflict in his Easter homily in the church.

But pilgrims said his message was drowned out by chimes from a service of another of the six rival Christian sects which maintain a tense coexistence in the massive shrine.

Archbishop Carey also cautioned against what he called a society jaded by images of suffering.

"I'm concerned that at the moment it seems that Africa fatigue is starting to effect us all," he said. "If it's not Mozambique and the floods, then its Sudan and the forgotten war. If it's not Rwanda and the genocide, then it's Sierra Leone and the forced amputation of limbs from men, women and children. If it's not Uganda and AIDS, then it's the famine in Ethiopia. If it's not South Africa and violence and rape, then it's the issue of land in Zimbabwe."

This year's "Urbi et Orbi" address in Rome was significant because it was the first since the Pope's historic trip last month to the Holy Land, where he prayed at the spot marking the spot of Jesus's resurrection.

The Pope, wearing resplendent gold vestments and speaking from an altar platform bedecked with 50,000 flowers, said the joy of the resurrection should signal new paths of hope.

He urged humanity to "advance together toward a world more just and mutually supportive, in which the blind egoism of the few will not prevail over the cries of pain of the many, reducing entire peoples to conditions of degrading misery."

In an apparent reference to abortion and euthanasia, the Pope said everyone, including governments, had "to acknowledge the inalienable value of human life."

"May it encourage effective responses to the increasingly felt demand for justice and equal opportunity in all areas of society; may it impel individuals and states to full respect for the essential and authentic rights rooted in the very nature of the human person," he continued.

In the message, the Pope prayed for "a happy outcome" to difficult peace talks trying to bring an end to conflicts in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and some parts of Europe.

"Help the nations to overcome old and new rivalries by rejecting attitudes of racism and xenophobia," to prayed to God.

The crowd in the square, which was dotted with olive trees symbolizing peace, was swollen by many pilgrims from around the world who had travelled to Rome for celebrations of 2000, which the Pope has proclaimed a special Holy Year.

Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian calendar, coincides this year with Passover, the Jewish holiday marking the biblical exodus from Egypt.

Wary of thcrowds flooding the ancient walled city, Israeli security forces observed from the rooftops as Easter processions wound through the flag-stoned lanes.

Extreme right-wing Jews were also demonstrating on Sunday at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, against the Moslem presence in the city.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.

Jerusalem's fate is the most emotive issue to be tackled when negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians resume on April 30.

Some pilgrims found the religious interaction unsettling.

"What shocked me was that this (church) that is so important to Christians has its keys in the hand of Moslems," said Francois Sahily from the Ivory Coast.

"We came here because Jesus is here, we came to be with him, and a Moslem has to let us in!"

Abed Joudeh, a member of one of two the Moslem families that have held the keys to the church door for centuries, sat at the threshold watching the camera-clutching crowd shuffle by.

"This is the greatest church in the Christian world - just like Mecca for the Moslems. We Moslems also believe Jesus has risen. He ascended up to Heaven, it is written in the Koran," Joudeh said.

Then he shook his finger in the face of a European nun and yelled: "Sister, sister. Keep moving. The door is over there, go out!"

In New York City, thousands took to the street for the annual Easter parade down Fifth Avenue, including many women wearing colorful bonnets. The tradition began in the 19th century, when women would promenade along the avenue after church in their new Easter finery.