4, April 2005	Monday	24 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, April 3: The Catholic community on Sunday mourned the death of Pope John Paul II in mass services at churches and cathedrals in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and other places in the country.

Many people might remember the danger and threat to his life during his only visit to Pakistan in 1981.

He had received innumerable threats and was even attacked by a Turk with the name of Agca, who tried to kill him near the Vatican. The Pope later pardoned him.

In addition, when some

citizens belonging to the

Catholic faith were gunned

down in Bahawalpur in 2001,

he sent a very soft message

advising his following to pray

to the Holy Father for mercies

as well as to ‘inspire in you

the sentiments of wisdom and sentiments of courage in facing the challenges of this hour of trial’.

The general public in Pakistan has been saddened by the death of Pope and many people consider him a man who understood the Muslim mind. One of the many reasons, which endeared him to the Muslim people was because he considered modern life had less morality.

He was also dour enough to oppose some very prominent Catholic priests who desired him to be charitable to divorce and cast approving eyes at ordination of women and accept married men as priests or even gay priests.

He was the first Pope to have stepped into a mosque as well as sought to bridge the gulf between one nation and another. After the 9/11 incident, he tried to forge a spirit of reconciliation between Christianity and Islam and to that end visited a number of Muslim countries including Albania, Cameron, Chad, Indonesia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia and Turkey.