MANILA — Baclaran Redemptorist Church is a cavernous, seven-story structure with a vaulted ceiling and hundreds of pews. Throughout the day Wednesday, 120,000 Catholics came to worship, as they do every Wednesday. Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass here.
Across busy Roxas Boulevard is the Baclaran Grand Mosque. Despite its name, there is nothing grand about it. Unfinished after nine years, its modest onion dome presides over a squatters' settlement of poverty and squalor. After fire swept through the community of 5,000 this week, destroying 170 shanties and killing two children in their sleep, Muslim leaders complained that they were receiving little help from the Catholic-dominated central government.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday April 16, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 39 words Type of Material: Correction
Catholic population -- A graphic accompanying an article in Thursday's Section A about Catholicism in the Philippines said Mexico had 126 million Catholics. Estimates vary, but most sources put the number of Catholics in Mexico at about 90 million.
The contrast between the church and the mosque highlights the gulf between two groups that have lived side by side in inequality for centuries. The world's largest Roman Catholic country with a substantial Muslim population, the Philippines is a divided nation that witnesses frequent violence between followers of the two faiths.
Now, with the death of John Paul, many Filipino Catholics and Muslims hope that his successor will continue his efforts to reach out to Muslims. Many Muslims here also hope the next pope will maintain John Paul's strong stance against the war in Iraq, a conflict they view as an attack on their religion by the United States.
"If the new pope is not a peace-loving man, I don't know what will happen," said Abdelmana Tanandato, 44, a Muslim who lives in a shack next to the mosque. "I hope the new pope will be the same as John Paul II."
The tension in the Philippines between the religions underlines a global rift that John Paul, more than any of his predecessors, worked to bridge. As Catholic cardinals prepare to convene in the Vatican next week to choose his successor, they are divided over how vigorously the next pope should pursue conciliation with Islam, which like Catholicism, boasts about 1 billion adherents.
John Paul met with Islamic leaders all over the world, preaching brotherhood and engaging in dialogue. He apologized for past misdeeds of the church, including the Crusades. In Syria in 2001, just four months before the Sept. 11 attacks, he became the first pope to enter a mosque.
But his outreach to Islam and other religions worried many in his own church who felt that he was leading it into relativism, the belief that no religion is any more authentic than another. The Vatican's own doctrinal office appeared to undermine his effort in 2000 with a document asserting the supremacy of Christian faith as a means to salvation.
