Religion: Apostle Endangered

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If the health of the Pope holds up, the heavy pace will continue: Western Samoa, via Pago Pago, on Sunday; Australia on Monday; Djakarta Thursday; Hong Kong Friday morning, and Colombo, Ceylon, Friday evening on the way back to Rome. What does he hope to accomplish in return for such a grueling schedule? "It will stimulate missionary activity and broaden understanding with other religions in the service of progress and peace," he said in his farewell speech in Rome. But more than ever before, various aspects of the Pope's traveling plans have been criticized by the press and even by some prelates. To add to his discomfiture, he touched off criticism among his own cardinals shortly before leaving Rome by decreeing that cardinals over 80 could henceforth neither hold "Vatican office" nor vote in a papal election. The Pope suggested in his directive that "the problem of advanced age" might affect "grave and delicate roles" of cardinals.

Unwitting Help. Criticism of the trip started with Sydney's Anglican Archbishop Marcus Loane, who announced in October that he would not attend an ecumenical service with the Pope; Loane cited such doctrinal differences as papal infallibility to explain his refusal. A columnist in Turin's La Stampa criticized the Dacca stop, arguing that the papal visit would pull needed men and equipment off relief operations. A Catholic monthly in Colombo asked whether papal visits "help clarify fundamental issues or mystify them," pointing out that the Pontiff could give equally impassioned speeches in "racist Portugal" and in "underdeveloped Uganda."

In the light of such criticism, Mendoza may have unwittingly helped the papal cause with his abortive assassination attempt. As most such attempts do, it focused both attention and sympathy on the intended victim—in this case a frail, determined man who means somehow to be a leader in an increasingly disjointed world. His exhortations on peace and international generosity seem to have borne little fruit, and he apparently hopes that his own concerned presence may somehow make his message mean more.