Return of the Native

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square in front of the newly restored Royal Palace. Elderly Poles dressed for Mass prayed fervently or chatted in hushed tones about the Pope's imminent arrival. About 20 university students from Poznan who had slept overnight on the floor of a Dominican cloister strummed guitars and sang religious and folk songs. Entire families huddled in the windows of nearby buildings that were decorated with white-and-red Polish flags, yellow-and-white papal pennants and portraits of the Pope and the Black Madonna. As John Paul rode past in the white Popemobile that had been brought from Rome, a wave of emotion surged through the crowd. Some Poles openly wept. Others thrust their fingers defiantly into the air in a V sign and chanted "Solidarnosc"and "Walesa."

The papal entourage came to a halt in front of St. John's Cathedral, a red-brick gothic church in the Old Town that has served as a rallying point for antigovernment demonstrators since the declaration of martial law. John Paul entered the church and descended to the underground crypt to pray in front of the tomb of the late Polish Primate Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, who died in May 1981.

The Pope then celebrated a memorial Mass for Wyszynski. In his homily John Paul urged Poles to consider the Passion of Christ. The Pontiff told the hushed assembly, crammed into every alcove of the vaulted church, that he stood beneath the Cross, "together with all my compatriots—especially those who are most acutely tasting the bitterness of disappointment, humiliation, suffering, of being deprived of their freedom, of being wronged, of having their dignity trampled upon." Then, in a second indirect appeal to jailed Solidarity supporters, he cited Wyszynski's three-year ordeal under house arrest during a state campaign against the church in the 1950s as an example of how to draw strength from adversity. The congregation burst into applause when John Paul thanked God that Wyszynski had been "spared the sad events associated with the date of Dec. 13, 1981," when martial law was imposed.

The Pontiffs tribute to the late Primate underscored how deeply Polish Catholics have felt the loss of Wyszynski, who almost single-handed shaped the church into a social force that Poland's Communist leaders can now ignore only at great risk. His successor, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, 54, a soft-spoken expert in canon law, realizes only too well that he cannot imitate the late Primate's autocratic style. Instead, he has tried to work in closer consultation with the church's 89-member episcopate.

But Glemp has come under criticism from some Catholic intellectuals and radical parish priests who actively supported Solidarity. They claim that he has not been forceful enough in pressing the Jaruzelski government to seek a dialogue with Polish society. Says a writer who specializes in religious affairs: "The church knows from experience that the only time the authorities listen is when the government is weak. Jaruzelski is weak now, and the more militant branch of the church believes it is time to set conditions for future cooperation."

With Solidarity no longer a third force in Polish politics, the church has once again moved into its traditional role as the only recognized voice of the disaffected and disenfranchised. Says Father Bronislaw Piasecki, Glemp's private