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Pope John Paul closes sacred Holy Door VATICAN CITY (AP) - Tugging twice, then turning the handle with the help of an aide, Pope John Paul II shut the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica on Saturday and offered a highly personal reflection of the Jubilee year just ending, expressing wonder and just a little regret. The huge bronze door, roughly 13 feet high, usually is opened and closed about every 25 years. This Holy Year coincided with the change of millennium, and John Paul had eagerly looked forward to the event for much of his 22-year-old pontificate, as a chance to rejuvenate the faith of the world's 1 billion Catholics. Some 25 million people made the Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome. So many, that in the last week the Vatican eased its rigid hours, letting people through the doorway late into the night, and on the final day, into the early morning hours. "I have often stopped to look at the long queues of pilgrims waiting patiently to go through the Holy Door," the pope wrote in an 80-page letter released Saturday that read much like a diary. "In each of them I tried to imagine the story of a life, made up of joys, worries, sufferings ..." In an unusual touch, he signed the letter to all Catholics in public, on a little table brought to him on the basilica's steps before some 100,000 people packing St. Peter's Square. "The missionary mandate accompanies us into the third millennium and urges us to share the enthusiasm of the very first Christians," the pope wrote, encouraging Catholics to try to shape "history according to God's plan." Specific challenges, he said, include scientific advances which "must never disregard fundamental ethical requirements." An aide held the pope's left arm to support him as the pontiff turned the handle to close the door in the basilica's atrium. At one point, he slowly got down on his knees on the hard marble threshold and prayed. When he sat in a chair, his clasped hands trembled, a symptom of what many said is Parkinson's disease, although the Vatican has never said exactly what ails the pope. Visit our back issue library Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Western Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2000 Lee Northwest Publishing