Pope draws in Manila crowds
A RECORD 6m-7m people are estimated to have attended Pope Francis’ final mass in Manila’s Rizal park yesterday, concluding his five-day visit to the Philippines.
The turnout breaks the record set by John Paul II in 1995, when some five million people came to the same park to attend mass.
The 78-year-old Argentine pope, wearing a yellow rain poncho over his white cassock, was driven through the adoring crowd on a modified Filipino “jeepney” vehicle.
Some people in the capital of Asia’s only predominantly Catholic country had waited all night for gates to open at dawn.