MELBOURNE, Australia -- Pope John Paul II, in a lively meeting with a fourth-grade class, showed students where an assassin's bullet hit him and said kangeroos helped him recover from jet lag.
The pontiff, who is on a two-week tour of Asia and the Pacific, spent 20 minutes with 27 Catholic students at St. Leo The Great primary school answering 14 questions from the 10-year-old boys and girls.
The pontiff told the students he likes rock music and that his favorite position on the soccer team is goalkeeper.
A surprise question came from one boy who asked, 'Could you just point to where you were wounded?'
John Paul, sitting in a chair with the children huddled around him on the classroom floor, pointed to his right side and said, 'It was here, I suppose.'
School Principal Margaret Fogerty said the students were told not to ask the pontiff any embarrassing questions and were warned not to ask him about the scar.
John Paul was seriously wounded by a Turkish gunman in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.
Another student, Michelle, asked the pope how he felt when he arrived in Austrialia. 'A little confused because of the time difference. And then I met the kangeroos, I felt better,' the pope said to the delight of the students.
The pope's 36-hour visit to Australia's second biggest city could include the most controversial moment of his two-week Asia and Pacific visit -- a long-promised statement of the Vatican's policy on the ethics of test-tube babies and in vitro fertilization research.
Australia is a world leader in in vitro fertilization research. This year, a medical team at Flinders University at Adelaide in South Australia recorded the first birth of a test-tube baby from a frozen human egg.
There was speculation a statement might be released Friday during the pope's visit to Mercy Maternity Hospital, where he scheduled an address to 300 patients, staff and friends.
The pontiff's Royal Australian Air Force jet touched down at Melbourne's Tullamarine airport just before 7 p.m. Thursday after a flight from the Tasmanian capital of Hobart.
After a greeting from Victoria state government and church officials, the 66-year-old pope walked along police barricades to shake hands and chat with some of several thousand well-wishers who turned out to welcome him.
John Paul drove to St. Paul's Anglican cathedral near the banks of the Yarra River to light a candle and pray for peace with Anglican Archbishop David Penman.
Earlier, the pope defended women's economic rights, saying they should be able to work without risking their dignity and free to bear and care for children without fear of financial penalty.
In a speech to 150 young unemployed Australians at a Roman Catholic work training center, the pope said working mothers should not be subject to 'any form of discrimination,' including psychological discrimination.
