Pope Praises Orthodox Church Leaders

A frail and emotional Pope John Paul, who normally preaches to millions, brought the grand atmosphere of the papacy to the 120 souls of Azerbaijan's tiny Roman Catholic community on Thursday.

Azerbaijan's Catholic community - the smallest of any country the pope has visited, according to Vatican officials - was overjoyed to see the pope. Some Catholics held up a sign saying "We Love You" in Russian.

"I just can't stop the goose bumps. I feel like I'm dreaming," said Sarah Lord Redfield, an American from Vienna, Virginia, who, like nearly half of Baku's Catholics, is a foreigner working in the oil industry.

"I can't tell you how much this means to us. That he has come here to see us," said David Maggiori, a Italian-Scot who also works in the oil industry. "I saw him in Britain in 1982 on one of his first trips and I am seeming him now on one of his last trips."

CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports one man tried to approach the pontiff with a petition, but was stopped by security. The Pope, seeing the incident, blessed the petitioner, who got within 15 feet of the altar before being dragged off by security.

Security was otherwise tight, with all those present required to pass through metal detectors before going into the area where the mass was celebrated.

The Pope said mass for all of Azerbaijan's registered Catholics and about 1,300 other guests, most of them Muslims, in a concrete Soviet-era sports hall.

At the start of mass it took the Pope about a minute to walk fewer than ten yards along a specially built railing. He was helped by his aides and used his cane to reach the altar.

When he arrived on Wednesday he had to be wheeled on a chariot-like platform at two events.

But despite the problems of mobility and symptoms of Parkinson's disease, the Pope appeared moved and pleased by the experience of preaching to such a small but vibrant flock, some of whom survived Soviet repression.

"It seems to me at this moment that Bernini's colonnade, those arms stretching out from the Basilica of St Peter to embrace the world, reaches out to hold you too, the little community of Azerbaijan," he said in his homily, referring to the columns around St Peter's Square.

During the mass the Pope seemed short of breath and delegated a priest to read part of his Russian-language homily for him as he has in the past few days.

"In this embrace, the heart of the whole Church beats with affection and love for you. With the Church, and in her, beats the heart of the Pope, who has come here to tell you that he loves you and has never forgotten you," he said.

The Pope and his entourage wore gold and white vestments as a choir re-created the atmosphere of a church.

Still, it was a far cry from Baku's great 19th century Romanesque basilica, which was destroyed in the 1930s by order of dictator Joseph Stalin.

Today, the Catholic community is run by two Slovak priests and meets in a small concrete building on Baku's outskirts.

"The last time I saw the Pope I was in a crowd of three million people in Krakow in 1979," said Marek Bartlowicz, 40, a Pole who works in the oil industry.

"Now I'm in the second row here and he is going to give me communion. A lot of things have changed for me since then and a lot of things have changed for him since then. We both have gotten older," he said.

Much has changed since 1979 when the Pontiff made his first historic trip to his Polish homeland, an event credited with laying the groundwork for the fall of communism there 10 years later.

It is an ironic twist of history that the Pope was welcomed as a human rights hero by President Heydar Aliyev, who during the communist era was head of the Azeri KGB, part of whose job was to repress religion.

In his homily the Pope, who leaves for Bulgaria later on Thursday, paid tribute to the victims of Marxist persecution.

"Brothers and sisters, you saw your religion mocked as mere superstition... you were regarded as second-class citizens and were humiliated and marginalized in many ways," he said.

The pope, who has sought to reconcile the millennium-old divide between Catholics and the Orthodox Church, greeted Orthodox leaders.

"You opened your doors to the Catholic faithful, who were without fold or shepherd. May the Lord reward your generosity," he said.

The pope did not mention Islam in his comments at the mass. He is to meet with representatives of the country's Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox Christian communities before leaving for Bulgaria.