wfn.org | Divine mercy needed to overcome injustice, says pope in Poland

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Note #7393 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

20-August-2002
02310

Divine mercy needed to overcome injustice, says pope in Poland 

Pontiff supports Poland's entry into the European Union 

by Jonathan Luxmoore 
Ecumenical News International
  
WARSAW - Poland's church and state leaders have praised Pope John Paul II following the pope's visit to the country, widely expected to be the 82-year-old pontiff's last to his Polish homeland.    
During the visit from Aug. 16 to 19, Pope John Paul spoke of the need for divine mercy to overcome "every injustice in the world" and urged support for those thrown into poverty since the collapse of communism.  

The pope left Poland Monday evening to return to Rome after a pilgrimage to the region around Krakow in the south of the country where he first served as a priest and lived for 40 years before he became pope in 1978.  

In his farewell speech, the pope gave support to Poland's effort to join the European Union saying he hoped Polish society would "find its proper place in the structures of the European community, not only without losing its identity, but also enriching the continent and world with its traditions."  

Speaking at the close of the visit, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, Poland's Roman Catholic leader indicated the significance of the pope's 24-year pontificate for his Polish compatriots.  

"We are often asked to which kind of Poland is the pope coming - to a Poland which cheers but fails to listen to him, to a Poland of shallow religiousness," said Glemp.  

"Yet whatever our merits and defects, we can boldly point to certain events which testify to the raising of our dignity during this pontificate."   

Meanwhile, the pope's "kindness, care and wisdom" were acknowledged by Poland's president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former communist.  

Kwasniewski said the pope's appeal to "mercy, solidarity, sensibility and decency" should provide "daily bread for Poland and the Poles."   

The pope's Polish pilgrimage, his ninth visit to his homeland since he became pope, was notable for its personal accents. He visited his first parish in Krakow as well as the graves of his parents and brother in the city's Rakowicki cemetery.  

Polish state TV showed the pope, who visibly suffers from Parkinson's disease, joking with the crowd about his age and about calls for his retirement, but also frequently slurring his words and experiencing discomfort.   

It also broadcast an hour-long silent transmission without commentary of the pontiff praying and reading his breviary.   

Speaking on Sunday, the Vatican spokesman, Joachim Navarro-Valls, said the pilgrimage had "presented the world with an appeal to hope which perfectly matches the spiritual hunger characterizing current times."  

The high point of the visit was a Mass on Sunday in Krakow claimed by Catholic sources to be Europe's biggest-ever religious gathering, at which the pope condemned genetic engineering and beatified four Polish charity workers.   

Pope John Paul told the up to 2.5 million people attending the Mass including the presidents of Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia that humanity had entered the new millennium "with a heritage of both good and evil."  

He also called on Roman Catholics to show a "new creativity in charity" towards those worst affected by post-communist changes in Poland, where official unemployment currently stands at 18 percent.   

"The hour has come to bring Christ's message to everyone:  to rulers and the oppressed, to those whose humanity and dignity seem lost in the mystery of iniquity," the pope said.   

We must take a loving look around ourselves if we are to be aware of the neighbor by our side, who - because of loss of work, of home, of the possibility to maintain his family in a decent manner and to educate his children, feels a sense of abandonment, of being lost, of distrust."  

The Krakow event attracted tens of thousands from neighboring countries and included messages to Christians in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.  

Speaking after talks with the pontiff in Krakow's Archbishop's Palace, Poland's prime minister, Leszek Miller, said the pope had declared support for his country's bid to join the European Union in January 2004.  

Miller, of the ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance, added that he had assured Pope John Paul that there were now "no tensions at all" in church-government relations. 
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