SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI accused the media of promoting sexual immorality as he canonised Brazil’s first native-born saint Friday before hundreds of thousands of faithful and a sea of flags from the world’s largest Catholic nation.Holding up Friar Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao as a model of rectitude and humility “in an age so full of hedonism,” Benedict said the world needs clear souls and pure minds, adding: “It is necessary to oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage.”

Benedict didn’t elaborate, but his message for Brazilian Catholics reflected his uneasiness with the impact of popular culture on young people.

“Any trend to produce programmes and products — including animated films and video games — which in the name of entertainment exalt violence and portray anti-social behaviour or the trivialisation of human sexuality is a perversion,” he said in a message in January.

That message could be a tough sell in Brazil. Though more than 70 percent of the nation’s 190 million citizens are Catholic, sex before marriage is common. And while polls show Brazilians oppose expanding access to abortion, they overwhelmingly support using condoms to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Scantily clad actresses are the norm in the nation’s hugely popular soap operas, and most women on Brazil’s famed beaches wear bikinis that leave so little to the imagination, they’re known as “dental floss”. Plastic surgery to reshape breasts and buttocks is nearly as popular as orthodontia, with most surgeons offering extended payment plan options.

“Nothing could be more countercultural than his message in Brazil, the land of the thong,” said David Gibson, a former Vatican Radio reporter.

Brazilian news media said the crowd reached about one million — as church officials had hoped for — although there were large empty spaces on the air field where Benedict sat on a throne of Brazilian hardwood, surrounded by Latin American bishops and choirs of hundreds.

“I think he is right to warn the people. I mean, it’s his job. But I won’t stop watching what I usually watch or stop reading what I usually read just because he said we shouldn’t,” said Mariana Pecego, a 17-year-old student in the crowed. “The pope is not going to decide what I should or shouldn’t do.”

Others appreciated Benedict’s effort nonetheless.

“There are a lot of bad things out there and many times we don’t even realise it, but when we hear the pope say that he is concerned, we need to pay attention and be careful the next time we watch TV or read a magazine. It makes us think twice,” said Divina Ferreira Fagundes, a 19-year-old saleswoman.

Galvao, a Franciscan monk credited by the church with 5,000 miracle cures, is the first native-born saint from the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, home to more than 120 million of the planet’s 1.1 billion Catholics, and the tenth to be canonised by Benedict.

It continues a push for saints in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world that began under John Paul II, who sought role models as part of the church’s worldwide reach. John Paul canonized more saints than all of his predecessors combined.

“Do you realise how big this is?” asked Herminia Fernandes, who joined the multitude that jammed an airfield for the open-air Mass.

“It’s huge, this pope is visiting Brazil for the first time and at the same time he is giving us a saint. It’s a blessing.”

Friar Galvao, who died in 1822, began a tradition among Brazilian Catholics of handing out tiny rice-paper pills, inscribed with a Latin prayer, to people seeking cures for everything from cancer to kidney stones.

Although doctors and even some Catholic clergy dismiss the pills as placebos or superstitious fakery, cloistered nuns still toil in the Sao Paulo monastery where Galvao is buried, preparing thousands of the Tic Tac-sized pills for free daily distribution. Each one carries these words: “After birth, the Virgin remained intact. Mother of God, intercede on our behalf.”

After canonizing Friar Galvao, the pope hugged Sandra Grossi de Almeida, 37, and her son Enzo, 7. She is one of two Brazilian women certified by the Vatican as divinely inspired miracles justifying the sainthood. She had a uterine malformation that should have made it impossible for her to carry a child for more than four months, but after taking the pills, she gave birth to Enzo.

“I have faith,” Grossi recently