STORY:
Pope, Bono Bond for Millennium Cause

Celebrities use clout to seek Pope's backing for Millennium related humanitarian effort

U2's lead singer Bono gave Pope John Paul II his sunglasses when he met him at the Pope's summer resident for a twenty minute audience to ask him for support of a move to eliminate third world debt by New Year's Eve.

Asked by reporters whether he wore a tie for the occasion, Bono said: "I was wearing sunglasses, but (the Pope) took them!" The pope tried on the wraparound shades, he said. Bono told the Pope: "You're a great showman as well as a great holy man."

Bono joined Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, Hollywood producer Quincy Jones and the Jubilee 2000 lobby group and which is urging rich countries to write off the able debts of the poorest countries. The pope is a long-time campaigner for a cut in poor countries' debts.

"(The pope's) everyday courage amazes me. As aged as he is and as infirm as he has been, he will, you know, hang out with a bunch of pop stars," Bono said. "It is a moral and intellectual obscenity that we can't write this off. We are trying to get a fresh start for a billion of the poorest of the poor," said Bono at a press conference.

DATE: 9/24/99

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