Faithful greet Pope Benedict XVI, as he tours, aboard his popemobile, at the stadium of Cotonou to celebrate a Holy Mass on the last day of his three-day trip to the Africa's western coast country of Benin, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Faithful greet Pope Benedict XVI, as he tours, aboard his popemobile, at the stadium of Cotonou to celebrate a Holy Mass on the last day of his three-day trip to the Africa's western coast country of Benin, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Women sing and wave the national flags of Togo and Benin as they wait for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI to celebrate a Holy Mass in the stadium of Cotonou on the last day of his three-day trip to Africa's western coast country of Benin, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Pope Benedict XVI walks to the altar to celebrate a Holy Mass in the stadium of Cotonou on the last day of his three-day trip to Africa's western coast country of Benin, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Pope Benedict XVI sits by the altar in the stadium of Cotonou as he celebrates a Holy Mass on the last day of his three-day trip to Africa's western coast country of Benin, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Pope Benedict XVI tours, aboard his popemobile, the stadium of Cotonou before celebrating a Holy Mass on the last day of his three-day trip to Africa's western coast country of Benin, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
COTONOU, Benin (AP) ? Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday led tens of thousands of people in a panoply of African tongues during a Mass in Benin's national soccer stadium, wrapping up a pilgrimage where he laid out his spiritual vision for Africa.
An estimated 80,000 people bowed their heads in prayer in the arena in Benin's commercial capital of Cotonou as the pope blessed the crowd. Women who had not made it inside kneeled in the parking lot and prayed. People had formed a line outside starting at 3 a.m., said Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi.
The Mass reflected the potential for harmony in Africa, with the liturgy delivered in at least 10 African languages and simultaneously broadcast in St. Peter's Square.
It included an acclamation in Congo's principal language, Lingala, a prayer for peace in Nigeria's Yoruba, followed by other parts of the liturgy in Ditamari, Mina, Bariba, Idaacha, and Lokpa ? all languages spoken by Benin's roughly 9 million people.
Nowhere is Catholicism growing more rapidly than on this continent of a thousand tongues which has helped breathe life into a church that has seen a steep decline in numbers of active faithful in Europe.
The pope's vision of the continent, formally delivered on Sunday to Africa's bishops in the form of an 87-page document known as a treatise, has been called a "papal road map" for Africa.
It applies church doctrine to address the continent's ills, especially the wars and conflicts caused by ethnic divisions. The strategy proposes a "sacrament of reconciliation," using the church's doctrine of forgiveness and the Christian concept of turning the other cheek in a bid to stem the cycle of retribution.
Sunday is the last day of the pope's three-day trip, the second African voyage of his papacy after his 2009 journey to Cameroon and Angola. Benin is emblematic of the growth of Catholicism, with the congregation growing by half, adding over half-a-million new converts in the past decade.
At the offertory part of the Mass, in addition to the bread and the wine, African priests in white cassocks also brought baskets full of products representing the riches of the soil and the craftsmanship of its people.
The first basket was filled with root vegetables like manioc, which is ground into flour and used to make foufou, the basic starch in the Central African diet. Another basket had palm products, a tree that serves as the symbol of a political party in neighboring Togo because every part of the tree from its oil to its fronds to its fruit can be used.
Beninois priest Rev. Benoit Odoung, who heads a Catholic college in Cotonou, said that the pope has recognized Africa's potential. The continent is poised to start sending more "reverse missionaries," African priests who travel to Europe and North America to encourage conversions at a time when congregations in the Western hemisphere are declining.
"You know, Africa is the cradle of humanity. Then when the rest of the world evolved, we trailed behind," Odoung said. "We are fundamentally religious. We have faith. And now as Christianity is declining over there, we stand to become 'the spiritual lungs of humanity,'" he said, quoting Benedict to describe Africa in the just-released document.
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