A frail Pope John Paul II arrived in France today to join other ailing pilgrims for a weekend of prayer at a shrine to the Virgin Mary in Lourdes.
Up to 300,000 people are expected in Lourdes, a small town nestled in the Pyrenees, for the pontiff's two-day visit to a mountainside where Mary is said to have appeared to St Bernadette in 1858.
The pope, seated in a wheelchair, was greeted by French President Jacques Chirac and his wife Bernadette on the red-carpeted runway at the airport in Tarbes. The Chiracs kissed the pope's ring and escorted him into a VIP building.
Then, speaking haltingly and with difficulty, John Paul paid homage to France's heritage of "culture and faith" and talked of his weekend plans to visit Lourdes' famous grotto.
"With great emotion I wish to join the millions of pilgrims who come to Lourdes each year from every part of the world, in order to entrust to the Mother of the Lord the intentions which they bear in their hearts and to ask for her help and intercession," he said.
Mr Chirac called Lourdes - the second-most visited Christian city of pilgrimage after Rome - "a place of faith and hope."
Lourdes' shrine - a grotto where the faithful pray, light candles and drink from a spring - is associated with healing powers for the sick. The Vatican says, however, that the 84-year-old pope is not seeking a cure for his Parkinson's disease and other health problems.
Most of Lourdes' visitors are healthy, but the site has added meaning for the sick. Thousands of people have claimed they were healed by the famous spring water, which pilgrims pour into small plastic vials in the shape of the Virgin Mary to take home.
The church has officially recognised 66 miracles at Lourdes since Bernadette had her vision of a white-clad Mary. Doctors study the claims to verify them - an arduous process that takes years and culminates in a bishop's approval.
The shrine is said to have brought sight to the blind, cured multiple sclerosis and made tumours vanish.
Some of Lourdes' pilgrims come in wheelchairs and stretchers. Nurses, scout troops and other volunteers help them eat, bathe in the spring or just shop at the myriad stands selling rosaries and Virgin Mary souvenirs.
AP