Brazil is a very Catholic country," my taxi driver reminded me, as if I might have forgotten this pretty basic fact, on my way to write my diary as the Pope's Mass got under way.
Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians - the young, the middle-aged and the old - turned out to celebrate the proclamation by the Pope of their first saint.
The ceremony took place at what used to be Sao Paulo's municipal airport.
In the early days of aviation, the airstrip was on the edge of the city outskirts, but today the runways have been swallowed up by the apparently limitless expansion of what is now the biggest city in the Americas, and the seventh biggest city in the world.
Benedict has been preaching to young people here about the importance of sexual abstinence before marriage. He blames the media for ridiculing virginity.
During the razzmatazz of the song-and-dance show put on by the Church authorities for the Pope's youth rally last night, I decided to carry out my own rather unscientific opinion poll in a bustling shopping mall.
I walked into a fashion shop and spoke to sales assistants Daniela, 21, Juliana, 18, and Paulo, 23, and asked them what they thought about the Pope's visit and his advice.
Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians - the young, the middle-aged and the old - turned out to celebrate the proclamation by the Pope of their first saint.
The ceremony took place at what used to be Sao Paulo's municipal airport.
In the early days of aviation, the airstrip was on the edge of the city outskirts, but today the runways have been swallowed up by the apparently limitless expansion of what is now the biggest city in the Americas, and the seventh biggest city in the world.
Benedict has been preaching to young people here about the importance of sexual abstinence before marriage. He blames the media for ridiculing virginity.
During the razzmatazz of the song-and-dance show put on by the Church authorities for the Pope's youth rally last night, I decided to carry out my own rather unscientific opinion poll in a bustling shopping mall.
I walked into a fashion shop and spoke to sales assistants Daniela, 21, Juliana, 18, and Paulo, 23, and asked them what they thought about the Pope's visit and his advice.