Mexicans attribute miracles to late Pope

Monterrey (Mexico), Dec 22 (IANS/EFE) An exhibition of personal items belonging to the late Pope John Paul II is drawing thousands here, with some claiming that the pilgrimage has helped them overcome illness.

“People who come here feel very touched, even moved to tears. They say they feel the presence of John Paul II,” said Guillermo MacLean, director of Villacero Foundation that put together the exhibit.

“Many people who are ill have come here,” MacLean said.

A woman suffering from pain in one arm pressed the affected arm against a bronze replica of one of John Paul II’s hands and begged that she should get better. “The woman later returned to say thanks to the Pope because the problem she was suffering from had gone away,” MacLean said.

She is not the only one. There was another woman whose baby’s illness was so severe that doctors believed she would die, just at the time when John Paul II was visiting the city.

The woman went to pray at the Mass the Pope celebrated on a bridge over the Santa Catarina river and asked him to perform a miracle for her baby. The woman recently went to the exhibition to thank the Pope — because her child is still alive and its illness has disappeared.

MacLean said the faithful pray, cry, bring Bibles and prints of Virgin Mary and place them before some 150 belongings of John Paul II that have been on show since April.

The exhibition has been visited by over 100,000 people from Mexico and from the nearby southwestern US states.

Among the objects in the exhibit are the personal Bible of the late Pope, the chalice he used during his pontification, a bicycle he owned, his cassock, chasuble, cardinal’s cap, umbrella, sun glasses and a kayak.

The exhibition was scheduled to end June 27 but the Vatican has been asked to keep it open till March 2011.

–IANS/EFE