More from from Rome and beyond

• MEXICAN SOCCER GAMES CANCELED | 3:04 a.m. ET

The Mexican soccer federation announced that it would postpone two soccer games previously scheduled for Sunday, the day a Mass was to be held for the pope in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

• LATIN AMERICA MOURNS POPE | 1:05 a.m. ET

Hundreds of thousands of people in heavily Roman Catholic Latin America gathered at neighborhood parishes and in city squares Saturday to lament the pope's death.

Cathedral bells rang out from Mexico to Argentina, calling saddened worshippers to special Masses in memory of the Spanish-speaking pope.

In Mexico City, which John Paul chose for the first foreign trip of his papacy in 1979, about 200 people gathered at the base of a bronze statue of the pope at the Basilica of Guadalupe, crying, clapping, clutching rosaries and chanting: “John Paul II, the whole world loves you!”

• CHINESE CATHOLICS REACH OUT | 11:34 p.m. ET

Chinese Catholics, long forbidden by their Communist rulers from recognizing the Holy See, mourned Pope John Paul II on Sunday and sent a commemorative telegram to the Vatican.

Beijing officially only allows worshippers to belong to state-sanctioned churches, prompting many Catholics loyal to the Vatican to worship underground.

China broke ties with the Vatican in the 1950s after expelling foreign clergy and all religion was devastated during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. The Holy See recognizes Beijing's diplomatic rival, Taiwan.

But state television announced the Pope's death and the official Xinhua news agency reported the sending of the telegram to Rome "on behalf of more than 5 million Catholics in the country."

"This morning, we phoned leading groups of all provinces and autonomous regions, asking them to arrange some special service for the Pope that he may lay at rest in the arms of God," Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Catholic Patriotic Association of China said. He said he thought there would be a service to mourn his passing.

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