
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 8, 1990                   TAG: 9005080701
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: VERACRUZ, MEXICO                                LENGTH: Short

POPE DEFENDS CHRISTIANITY CELEBRATION

In the port city where Christianity first entered Mexico, Pope John Paul II defended plans to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Christianity in the New World. Critics charge that the church came as an agent of conquest, repression and disease.

"The discovery, the conquest and the evangelization occupy a decisive, luminous place taken all together, even though they are not without shadows," John Paul told thousands of people at a waterfront prayer service on Monday.

The pope spoke from a raised platform along the Gulf Coast harbor where conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes first reached Mexico in 1519.

They were followed five years later by the first group of missionaries.

The celebrations planned for 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in America, have prompted a fierce debate in Latin America. Critics charge that the European conquerors destroyed native cultures, and that Roman Catholic priests were an instrument of conquest.

-Associated Press

by CNB