At one point, a Dominican priest in white robes danced in wide leaps around the altar, waving a fly whisk. A praise singer, or imbongi, dressed in jackal skins, a feathered headdress and belts of beads (with a small microphone transmitter carefully concealed in them), shouted a prayer in the southern Sotho language. Some bare-breasted young women were among a dozen gift-bearers who brought baskets of gourds, maize and fruit in the offertory procession.

The crowd roared its approval throughout, ululating and toyi-toying to music that included the steady beat of African drums. A faint smile played on the face of President Nelson Mandela as he watched the Pope get the royal treatment from an imbongi. Though most of the people sat on the ground among blankets and pillows they had brought from home, many of the women were in suits with stockings and pumps and the men wore ties -- a sign of respect, they said.

The Pope spoke of the need to bring peace to all of Africa and praised South Africa for its peaceful transition to a non-racial democracy.

"Seeing what is happening here," he said, "men and women of good will hope that in other parts of this continent too, and throughout the world, violence will give way to dialogue and agreement, and the lives of innocent men, women and children will no longer be in danger for reasons which, more often than not, they neither share nor understand."

Indeed, many said they saw the Pope's arrival as one more sign that their country was on the right course.