Pontiff recalled as builder of bridges

PARIS -- From bells tolling at the mighty Notre Dame Cathedral to prayers said on an earthquake-ravaged Indonesian island, the world mourned Pope John Paul II yesterday as a beloved and admired spiritual and moral leader, a champion of peace and a builder of bridges between faiths.

Pilgrims burned candles at the grotto of the healing shrine in Lourdes, France, where the pontiff prayed twice during his last foreign trip, in August.

In New York, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former mayor Rudolph Giuliani joined parishioners who packed St. Patrick's Cathedral for Mass.

People from every continent found something in the life of the pope to praise.

''The Jewish people will remember the pope, who bravely put an end to historic injustice by officially rejecting prejudices and accusations against Jews," President Moshe Katsav of Israel told Israel Radio.

During a 2000 visit to the Holy Land, the pope left a note at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall and expressed sorrow for the suffering of Jews at Christian hands, particularly during the Holocaust.

A year later, his visit to the revered Umayyad Mosque in the Syrian capital, Damascus, was the first by a leader of the Roman Catholic Church to a Muslim place of worship. Sheik Salah Keftaro, a prominent Syrian Islamic cleric, said, ''Muslims and Christians alike have lost the pope, and we are in a deep sadness for his loss."

On the Indonesian island of Nias -- devastated by last week's deadly, magnitude-8.7 earthquake -- a priest said special prayers at Santa Maria Cathedral.

In China, where worship is allowed only in government-sanctioned churches, believers sang and prayed for him.

In Cuba, a youth newspaper published a letter from President Fidel Castro: ''Humanity will preserve an emotional memory of the tireless work of His Holiness John Paul II in favor of peace, justice, and solidarity among all people."