During his twenty-minute private audience yesterday with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, President Fern?ndez invited the Pontiff to celebrate in Santo Domingo the Grand Jubilee Mass the Catholic Church plans for the year 2000. The invitation received no immediate answer from the Pope. If he accepts, it will be John Paul’s fourth visit to the DR since becoming Pope; prior visits have been in 1979, 1984 and for the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ landing in America, 1992. Fern?ndez’s private audience itself was historic; it is the first time since the dictator Trujillo that a Dominican head of state has been received by the Pontiff at the Vatican.
