Pope Gets Boost From Success of Manila Visit : Religion: John Paul ‘energized’ by reception at World Youth Day event, attended by 4 million.

MANILA —  Pope John Paul II, climaxing his church’s World Youth Day and his own return as a world traveler, seemed as much awed as awe-inspiring Sunday as he savored the largest crowd he has ever greeted.

“He is delighted. It is his first trip in such a long time, and he has found this kind of reception. This has clearly been a boost for him,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro said of the millions who gathered for a Mass in Asia’s only predominantly Catholic capital.

The Vatican’s working estimate, based on reports from Philippine authorities, put the crowd attending the Mass at 4 million in a city of 10 million. About half a million delegates from around the world were registered for Youth Day, but in flavor and verve Sunday’s fiesta was down-home Philippine.

Happily marooned in a vast river of people stood government worker Rodolfo Nonato. He had risen early on a warm Sunday and walked downtown, aiming for the sprawling altar at a bay-side park to watch John Paul celebrate Mass.

The press of humanity stopped him far short. For all Nonato’s chances of hearing Mass, seeing John Paul or even glimpsing a far-off swatch of white, he might as well have been in Rome.

“So many people want to see the Pope. We can’t, but it doesn’t make that much difference. We feel his presence,” Nonato said.

Vatican officials say it was the biggest crowd in the 16-year reign of history’s most-traveled Pope--bigger than the turnout in 1979 when John Paul returned to his native Poland as Pope for the first time.

Sunday’s huge response to a papal call for prayer was also metaphoric, a grass-roots welcome back to a 74-year-old Pope making his first extended overseas trip since he broke a leg last spring.

“The Pope seems energized by the reaction here,” said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles. “At the same time, young people who came with us say they feel uplifted by the Pope’s enthusiasm. ‘This is for real. He really loves us,’ one of the kids said.”

The Roman Catholic Church celebrates Youth Day every year, but it is the huge biennial jamborees around the world rather than the alternate-year observances in Rome that most excite the Pope. The 1997 celebrations will be in Paris, he announced Sunday.

On Saturday night, John Paul stayed late at a prayer vigil with young people, holding hands, singing and swaying to melodies of inspirational pop.

In his homily at Mass on Sunday, John Paul urged young people to “break down the barriers which have been raised between generations” by maintaining communications with parents with whom they might not necessarily agree.

“How many young people think they are free because they have thrown off every restraint and every principle of responsibility?” the Pope asked. “They abuse the beautiful gift of sexuality, they abuse drink and drugs, thinking that such behavior is all right because certain sectors of society tolerate it.”

Moral standards are eroded, the Pope warned, “under peer pressure and under the pervasive influence of trends and fashions publicized by the media. Millions of young people the world over are falling into subtle but real forms of moral slavery.”

Speaking to the giant crowd in clear, loud English, he told young people they could find a defense against modern undermining of moral standards by following the lessons of Christ, “the one model that will not deceive you.”

The Pope read the homily seated in a throne on the altar Sunday in deference to his leg. And he descended with difficulty from the small helicopter that flew him to the Mass after the huge crowd made it impossible to drive as planned in the panoramic “Popemobile.”

His slow-healing leg forced the Pope to cancel a U.S. tour in the fall, and the current Asian trip is his first outside Europe since 1993.

This morning, John Paul will fly to Papua New Guinea for a two-day visit during which he will beatify the island country’s first saint. On Wednesday, he will journey to Australia.