Pope John Paul II, sure of his direction, strong in his faith, has thrust the church into moral and political controversy in countries as diverse as the United States and Nicaragua. He could do no different on his eight-day tour of Mexico, Roman Catholicism's largest Spanish-speaking nation. For starters, the visit outlined in flashing neon one of Mexico's most delicious contradictions _ a country 90 percent Catholic, a constitution that forbids the church to own property, educate children or peep about politics. The pope violated the constitution just by appearing in public in clerical garb, not to mention saying Mass for 500,000 people dressed in a golden chasuble on national television. The church was quick to say the vast crowds served as a virtual plebiscite on the binding element, the notorious article 130. ``Only Albania has a constitution like that,'' said Javier Navarro, in charge of the Vatican office for Latin America and Spain. But the dance between church and state in Mexico is more complicated than the lambada. The church bet on conservatives in the Mexican Revolution of 1910; when liberals won, they took revenge on their reactionary foe. Although its public role was circumscribed, the church retained much of its strength. The motto of the papal visit is: ``Mexico _ Always Faithful.'' Breaches of the constitution have been winked at for decades. Politicians send their children to Catholic-run schools, even universities, because they are better than public schools. ``The pope's visit proves that the problem with article 130 of the constitution is not how to change it, but how impossible it is to enforce,'' columnist Gaston Garcia Cantu wrote in Excelsior, an influential newspaper. President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has been winking hard. He took office on Dec. 1, 1988, with the weakest mandate an Institutional Revolutionary Party president ever had. His party was accused of fraud. There was violence in the streets on Inauguration Day. But Salinas surprised his opponents by locating a new constituency. He invited Roman Catholic prelates to his inauguration and hinted that the relationship between church and state should be brought in line with reality. He sent a personal envoy to the Vatican, establishing diplomatic relations of a kind for the first time since 1926. Salinas greeted John Paul when he arrived and had the pope to morning coffee. The president's office provided security and press arrangements for the visit, including an extra plane. The church, sniffing the carrot of increased recognition, has been grateful. ``I pray every day for President Salinas,'' said Monsignor Genaro Alamilla, spokesman for the Mexican church. Salinas' opponents know it doesn't pay to attack the pope, and the government has ruled out real constitutional change. So they pick around the edges: the pope is talking politics, they say. The government of a poor nation is spending too much on showtime for the pope. ``We welcome this distinguished visitor, the spiritual guide to millions of Mexicans,'' said Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, runner-up to Salinas in 1988. ``But the government made it into politics.'' But if the pope allowed himself to be used politically, he got plenty back. Again and again he addressed controversial issues, always pleading the church's cause. He demanded the freedom to provide education to the faithful _ a role that would expand greatly if it were free of restrictions. He attacked contraception in a country with a rising population of 85 million that suffers all the Third World problems of poverty and malnutrition and where family planning is government policy. He attacked materialism and greed before Mexico's richest businessmen, but in Monterrey found himself giving a homily flanked by enormous Carta Blanca beer signs. He linked capitalist culture with contraception and abortion, saying material lust makes people want to limit their families. He visited the Indian communities of southeastern Mexico in an effort to fend off Protestant evangelicals who are learning the native languages and converting the poor, the homeless and those who lost their native culture to encroaching ``progress.'' ``I think his visit could help revitalize the faith here,'' said Benjamin Cruz, a 51-year-old psychiatrist among a throng of 200,000 at Villahermosa. ``Catholics here are disoriented. It's sad to see.'' It was almost forgotten amid the political wavelets, but to most in the crowd, the pope's role was to focus shared faith. Hundreds of thousands gathered to sing, to listen, to catch a glimpse. When he leaped off an isolated podium and charged through a fence to mix with murderers and drug traffickers in a prison yard, a prison chorus broke into Beethoven's ``Ode to Joy.'' Municipal officials engaged in a game of one-upmanship over who gave the best reception. Some Mexico City authorities claimed a questionable 8 million to 10 million people lined the nine-mile parade to the Basilica of Guadalupe; there were more like 250,000. In Aguascalientes, the city fathers were told the pope would stop at the airport but wouldn't come into town. So they built giant replicas of their finest buildings on the tarmac. They claimed a crowd of 700,000; more mathematical minds calculated 50,000, tops. But whatever the crowd, the pope gave something back. In a thousand ways, John Paul provided an experience people will recount for years. In Tuxtla Gutierrez, he sparkled with jokes about his trouble pronouncing Indian languages. In Durango, squads of bicyclists chased a waving, bemused figure in the popemobile for miles. In Mexico City, 1,500 people outside his bedroom fell suddenly silent when he told them he loved their singing but wanted to sleep. ``For us it is the ultimate to come here,'' said Aurora Hinojosa Casillas, who rode 225 miles by bus from Ciudad Juarez to Chihuahua. ``Since I was born, I've been a Catholic and it's important. He is closer to God.''
