Costa Rica Mourns Death of Pope
By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net

Church bells pealed across the country following the announcement of the death of Pope John Paul II, age 84, Saturday afternoon. Somber-faced, and some swollen-eyed believers trickled into the Metropolitan Cathedral for the several hours following the announcement until the 5 p.m. mass in memory of the Pope who was considered the most often seen and most well-traveled in history. The sanctuary was glutted with people of all ages, some kneeling, some forced to stand in the aisles for a commemoration that eulogized the man as a saint.

“Saints don't die, they live forever through their luminous teachings, their sublime example and our memories of them,” the assembly of clergy intoned before the hundreds of visitors. “That the bells of all the churches of the world toll, a saint has arrived with God; Juan Pablo has died, amen.”

Costa Rica , an officially Catholic country that guarantees religious freedoms for other creeds, is one of the countries that is most visibly affected by the Pope's death. His visit here March 2, 1983, lingers in the memories of even those who were children at the time, and is one of the first touchstones for grief people mention when speaking about the impact of the Pope's death.

Flags fly at half-mast today and will until tomorrow on Presidential order.

“We are faced with an irreparable loss,” President Abel Pacheco said in a statement following the news of the Pope's death. “He was a man who changed history and a man who united the planet.” Pacheco laid the fall of the Soviet empire at the Pope's feet, saying it “dissolved in large part because of the actions of His Holiness.

“He was a saint, but with his feet on the ground; a man with calloused hands because he was a miner, a man who could play guitar, a man who knew how to love all of us and a man who we feel is a part of the people.”

Herald of the Gospel José María Sanabria told The Tico Times the Pope's passing “is not an absolute sadness – it's a mixed joy because he was a great Pope, but another will come. Only the Holy Spirit knows who it will be, and it will be a joy for us to see who comes.”

Among those standing in the aisles for lack of seating, Margarita Quintero, a maid and Nicaraguan immigrant, called the death “painful – he was a very good father.”

Francisco Duran, an unemployed odd-jobs man in attendance, said the Pope “has a lot of charity for the whole world. He went to many countries; he was loved by everyone. Thanks to God he is resting now. I hope the new Pope will be the same as he was.”

Laura Sobalvarro, a physical education teacher, met the Pope last year on a trip to Switzerland for a youth gathering. “For me, knowing him was the best… he was the best, a person to follow.” She would like the successor to be Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez, but would also like to see “the African,” Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze assume the Papacy.

Within 15-20 days, Cardinals under the age of 80 from around the world will elect the Pope's successor in a voting ritual called the conclave. Among those candidates considered favorites for the Papacy, two are Latin American, Rodríguez and Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Archbishop of Sao Paulo in Brazil . About half of the world's Catholics are in the Americas .

The election of Pope John Paul II blindsided many insiders. The former Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow, Poland, was elected Oct. 16, 1978; at 58, he was the youngest Pope in 132 years and the first non-Italian Pope chosen in 455 years.