A Triumphal Return

The Pope and his people draw power from each other

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who turned out to greet him. Darkly, the TV commentator explained that "some circles in the Polish church are trying to use [the visit] for antistate purposes." The Soviet press ran a two-sentence news report. Most of the satellite nations followed Moscow's lead, but Radio Free Europe, the BBC and Voice of America filled the gap, beaming extensive radio coverage of the visit. Yugoslavia's weekly NIN remarked: "It is hard to tell where pastoral work stops and politics begins," while Albania's party daily fumed: "The old desires of all the oppressors, the slaveowners, religionists and Popes to rule in peace are now being crushed" by the working masses.

Poland's own television provided more extensive coverage, but played down the crowd size and response. Meanwhile, officials did their best to belittle the turnout, offering reporters a ridiculously low estimate of 120,000 for one of the Czestochowa Masses. The audiences were "disappointing," one official declared, and Czestochowa's mayor let it be known that he had laid in 400 tons of bread a day to feed 1.5 million visitors and had a lot of it left over.

At the Czestochowa shrine there was one brief scuffle between police and pilgrims. A priest also took the microphone to announce: "Let us pray for those who cannot reach Czestochowa because they are stopped." The regime denied the persistent reports that it was hindering pilgrims in order to cut down the crowds. Supposedly, roadblocks were set up to prevent traffic jams in the cities, but a Western diplomat ran into one a full 19 miles away from Cracow before the Pope's arrival there. Church officials reported to friends that in various cases the buses for pilgrims that were promised in order to ease road congestion had never been delivered.

Even before his welcoming Mass in Warsaw, John Paul issued his first challenge to the Polish regime. It was presented in the guise of a formal greeting to Party Secretary Gierek. "It is [the church's] mission to make man more confident, more courageous, conscious of his rights and duties, socially responsible, creative and useful. For this activity the church does not desire privileges, but only and exclusively what is essential for the accomplishment of its mission."

Poland gives the church far more leeway than most Communist countries, but the Pope and his bishops want fundamental guarantees: freedom to publish books and periodicals, to broadcast, to build churches and name bishops without interference, the opportunity for Christians to earn jobs and degrees and educate their children in the faith without discrimination. The Pope told Gierek that church-state détente in Poland could be "one of the elements in the ethical and international order in Europe and the modern world, an order that flows from respect for the rights of the nation and for human rights."

A early Sunday morning Mass that the Pope celebrated just before leaving Warsaw brought a convincing demonstration that Polish Catholicism has deep roots among the young. The congregation outside St. Anne's Church consisted of youths, tightly packed into the square and surrounding streets. Here, as elsewhere, people continually passed out from the heat (as high as 93°) while the Pope addressed his "children." At last he said

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