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"I want to express my great gratitude to all those who, on the occasion of the anniversary (on Saturday) of my election to the seat of Saint Peter, sent me their congratulations and assured me of their prayers," the pope told thousands of believers at his weekly Sunday address in St Peter's Square.
Later he presided at a special mass in St Peter's basilica to inaugurate the Eucharistic Year -- a year of special devotion to the sacrament of the Eucharist, the centrepiece of the Catholic mass.
The Eucharist, the sacrament that recalls the last supper of Christ, is "light and life", the pope said.
"The world needs light in the difficult search for a peace which appears distant, at the beginning of a millennium ravaged and humiliated by the violence of terrorism and war."
He spoke of "threatening shadows" hanging over the human race, among them that of a "scientific research sometimes put to the service of the selfishness of the strongest.".
"What stronger aspiration is there than that of life?" he asked.
"And yet on this universal human aspiration threatening shadows are gathering -- the shadow of a culture that denies the respect of life at all its stages, the shadow of an indifference that sends countless people to a destiny of hunger and underdevelopment."
The pope read the first part of his speech himself but, because of his difficulties in speaking, most of his address, which was in Spanish, was read by a senior Vatican (news - web sites) official Mgr Leonardo Sandri, an Argentinian.
He did read the final part of the speech and announced that the next international Eucharistic conference would take place in Quebec in 2008.
Parkinson's disease (news - web sites) and other afflictions have left him a shadow of the robust and energetic Karol Wojtyla elected to the papacy 26 years ago.
The pope marked his anniversary on Saturday with two masses at his private chapel in the Vatican, and a celebratory lunch with his closest aides on dishes prepared by nuns from his native Poland, the Vatican said.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said John Paul II had received "thousands of congratulatory messages from all over the world, including Islamic countries" to mark the anniversary.
"We are not going to mention any in particular, but we can say there were heads of state, of government, international institutions, as well as ordinary people, Catholics or not."