Pope John Paul's 13-day pastoral visit to Poland, which continues this week, is the longest he has made to a European country and the seventh he has made to his native land in his 20-year pontificate. He has been received enthusiastically all over the country, which he has travelled extensively, dealing with a rich diversity of church, political and cultural affairs. It is a reminder that he is universally venerated there as a symbol of regeneration and spiritual renewal as well as patriotic endeavour.
His first engagement was in Gdansk, where an open-air Mass recalled the historic one held there in defiance of the communists in 1979. At the end of last week he addressed the national parliament in the presence of the former Solidarity leader and president, as well as the now retired general and President Aleksandr Kwasniewski, an ex-communist who emerged this decade to take over a revived social democratic party.
Politically, the Pope urged his countrymen to disregard cynicism, consumer values and corruption and to take more pride in their new-found citizenship of a more democratic Poland. He supported European unity and the role Poland should play in an enlarged European Union. He urged members of the parliament to see Europe not only in its political and economic elements but in terms of its cultural, ethical and spiritual diversity. He warned that new divisions and conflicts are growing on the continent.
These are well established themes of the Pope, which he has repeated in several other of his visits to central and eastern Europe, including in Romania last May. It is not sufficiently realised in western Europe just how popular and influential such messages have been in the former communist states. There is also a stereotype in western Europe concerning the Pope's religious influence in Poland. The Roman Catholic Church remains a very powerful institution there, its influence deeply connected with the survival of the Polish national ideal after the triple partition of the country in the 1790s between Prussia, the Austrian Hapsburgs and Russia. It played a similar role during the period of communist rule. But the church is now going through something of an institutional crisis, not unlike that in Ireland.
This visit is centrally concerned with its spiritual renewal. But Pope John Paul has usually aligned himself with relatively liberal and tolerant currents rather than with the conservative traditionalists who have relied on simple authoritarian means to perpetuate their religious influence in Poland. Only thus can he be sure the church will not lose widespread public support and devotion.
An example of his approach came in his meetings with Jewish community leaders. He has had an excellent relationship with Jewish religious representatives arising in good part from his experience in Poland. In another speech he praised the work of Copernicus, the great sixteenth century astronomer and commended his scientific method, mentioning his recent encyclical Faith and Reason as a continuation of it in the theological domain.