Third act of entrustment to Mary.

Rome--St. Peter's Square has seen many a solemn and impressive ceremony. One such especially noteworthy, even in this Jubilee year, took place on the evening of October 8, 2000, when Pope John Paul solemnly entrusted the Church and the world to the maternal care of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The ceremony was the cumulation of the Jubilee of Bishops. 1,500 bishops and 80 cardinals from all over the world concelebrated Mass with the Pope. At the end of Mass, the Holy Father knelt before the statue of Our Lady, brought from her shrine at Fatima for the occasion, and read the Act of Entrustment for the Third Millennium.

In his homily, he noted that devotion to Mary, to whose care Jesus entrusted us even as he died, is more then ever necessary in a world where, because of modern nuclear and genetic knowledge, "humanity is at a crossroads."

The Act of Entrustment follows on the 1984 consecration of Russia and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as requested by Mary herself through Sister Lucia dos Santos of Fatima. The words of the Act particularly begged Mary's intercession for the Church "as she faces the challenges which lie hidden in the future."

The Holy Father has always had a special devotion to Our Blessed Lady, more particularly after he attributed his narrow escape from death by assassination to her intervention. The bullet taken from his body and another which landed in the car are now mounted in the crown of the Fatima statue. Following a candlelit procession and recitation of the Rosary, the statue was flown back to its home in Portugal on October 9.