"It's a surprise, even though they were saying it wouldn't be a European, " said Marta Delgado, a 61-year-old churchgoer.

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Dottie, a soft-spoken churchgoer and humanitarian, said in a letter to Judge John Cleland that she never heard or saw anything sexual going on.

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One churchgoer said she wanted somebody like the late Pope John Paul II, who was welcomed by millions when he visited the Philippines in 1995.

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One regular churchgoer says the main thing she notices about Christmas is that it is so busy, you have to go earlier to get a seat.

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Gabriel Llorens, a churchgoer who has followed the new pope for years, said he was elated to see an Argentine and someone from Latin America become pope.

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"The attacks have really scared people, and it just makes them think if something did happen to them, at least they know where they're going when they die, " said another churchgoer, Christy Robinson.

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Mrs Brewer is a keen churchgoer and had acted as church warden at her former parish of St Clement's in Chorlton and her current parish at St Thomas's CE Church in Helmshore, Lancashire.

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"I am a churchgoer, " he said.

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