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CNN Live Saturday
Pope in Better Health as World Youth Day Festivities Begin
Aired July 27, 2002 - 17:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: More sex allegations against Roman Catholic priests. Two New Jersey priests were arrested in Montreal last week. They were allegedly soliciting sex with minors.
Their arrests were part of a sting operation. Canadian officials were trying to break up a prostitution ring that used boys as young as 14. One of the priests, the Reverend William Giblin, is a former headmaster of Seton Hall Prep School.
The archdiocese of Newark says both men have removed themselves from the ministry. And these new allegations come as many Roman Catholics are attending World Youth Day events in Toronto. Pope John Paul II spent much of the day meeting with Canadian leaders.
CNN's Jim Bittermann joins us now from Toronto, Canada with more on the festivities -- Jim.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Renay, I'm here at Downsview Airport, a former military airport on the northern edge of Toronto. We're here at this airfield that has been converted into a gigantic sort of Christian rock concert. Thousands of people have been pouring in here since the gates opened this morning at about 6:00 a.m., about 11 hours ago.
People walking miles to get here. One of the suggested routes of the World Youth Day folks, the organizers, was five miles in length. There were places you could come to that were a little shorter than that, but most everybody that's gathered here has walked at least a mile to get here. Along the way this being a very hot and sticky day today we saw people, residents of the Toronto community just pulling out their garden hoses and spraying the pilgrims as they were going by, trying to keep them cool.
Now I don't know if you can see behind me here, but folks here are basically prepared to spend the night. This is meant to be an all night vigil, so they brought along their tents and their sleeping bags, their blankets and food and water, prepared to spend the night. This is a huge area that we're in, more than 200 acres. There are, from the worst seat in the house to the stage is about 1,000 yards, about a kilometer.
So, in fact, they've set up a lot of TV screens, huge TV screens, 20 of them in fact, around the area, so that people can see what's going on on stage. Earlier in the day, the pope, as you mentioned, met with a number of officials including the prime minister of Canada, the governor general of Canada, the premier of Ontario, and the mayor of Toronto, and what was noteworthy about those meetings was that the host broadcaster left the microphones open so we could actually hear what was being said in these meetings, and in fact, what was very clear from what was being said is that the pope is very focused.
He was engaged in clear and very carefully worded conversations with the various officials he was meeting. So at least there's not as much worry as there might have been a few weeks ago about the Pope's health and his mental condition -- Renay.
SAN MIGUEL: I was going to ask you about that. Anybody who saw the pope's plane land earlier this week in Toronto and all the preparations that went on just to get him off the plane has to know that the pope's health is now a big issue. What, you know, what is the current state of his health, and what other accommodations are being made for his health on this trip?
BITTERMANN: Well, we've seen a real marked improvement on this trip compared to the last trip. When he was in Bulgaria back in May, the fact is, a lot of people around the Vatican, especially, were worried about how much more traveling the Pope could do and whether he could even handle this trip to Canada, but during this trip he's been much better.
Some of the local newspapers have said that perhaps the Vatican is giving him some kind of a miracle mix of drugs. The Vatican spokesman denied that there'd been any change in medication for the Pope, but just said in fact that he's showing the effects of a great deal of rest that he's had both prior to this trip and during this trip while he's been here in Toronto since Tuesday -- Renay.
SAN MIGUEL: Jim Bittermann reporting live from Toronto. Thank you for that report.
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