John Paul Hails Solidarity as Freedom Model

In his boldest challenge yet to Poland’s Communist authorities, Pope John Paul II on Thursday held up the outlawed Solidarity movement as a model in the struggle for human freedom and met privately with the union’s most famous personality, Lech Walesa.

The pontiff and the 1983 Nobel Peace laureate spent 40 minutes together here in a meeting that the Polish regime had tried to prevent but reluctantly permitted as an unofficial and unannounced addition to the itinerary of John Paul’s third papal visit to his homeland.

Before talking privately with Walesa in Gdansk, the birthplace of the Solidarity movement in 1980, the pontiff made his strongest public statement to date about the independent trade union at the nearby Baltic Sea port of Gdynia.

‘Important Reality’

“It is an important reality that the term solidarity was expressed right here before the Polish sea,” John Paul said, speaking to a huge audience of seamen, dockworkers and others from a towering platform at the foot of the busy seaport’s long wharf.

“In the name of the future of mankind and of humanity, the word solidarity must be pronounced,” he added after calming the audience which broke into thunderous applause, raised the banned union’s banners and chanted “Solidarity! Solidarity!”

As hundreds of paramilitary police watched from within the vast crowd and from the tops of nearby buildings, the pontiff added: “This word was uttered right here, in a new way and in a new context. And the world cannot forget it.”

Calling the word “your pride,” John Paul said: “People of Gdansk and Gdynia, your memories are still very much alive with the events of the ‘70s and ‘80s. We cannot forge ahead if we are pushed and shoved by the imperative of dizzying military armor, because this forebodes the prospect of wars and self-destruction.

“Furthermore, we cannot make progress, and we cannot speak of any kind of development, if in the name of social solidarity the rights of every person are not revered.”

‘Unity in Numbers’

Then, departing from his prepared text, the Pope asked, “What does solidarity mean? It is a way of living, respecting differences among people. It means unity in numbers. This is solidarity. This is pluralism. This concerns the whole nation. This concerns living in respect.

“I found a great need to carry out this analysis,” the pontiff said in another unprepared aside. “Even if the Pope who has come to you was not a Pole, he would have to do it all the same, because it is so important.”

The unexpectedly firm and open use of the term that has long been a code word here for resistance to the Communist regime followed by only hours another strong reference to the union in a third Baltic port, Szczecin.

There, during a morning Mass, the pontiff departed from his religious message to recall broken promises that the government made to Solidarity during its heyday in 1980. He spoke of what became known as the Szczecin Accords, which granted the trade union official recognition, guaranteed shipyard and industrial workers pay raises and better working conditions and promised reforms aimed at limiting censorship and easing political repression.

Martial-Law Declaration

The accords were abruptly discarded without ever coming into force when the Polish leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, declared martial law and suppressed the union in December, 1981.

John Paul’s challenging remarks have been building in a sort of crescendo during the first four days of his weeklong Polish pilgrimage. According to some members of his entourage, the increasing boldness of his speeches fits a strategy in which the Pope is attempting to keep the spirit and ideals of Solidarity alive among his fellow Poles, while not openly calling for the revival of the union or provoking open clashes between the people and the regime.

The Walesa meeting, lasting late into the night, was a case in point. When John Paul visited Poland in 1983, he was allowed to meet the Solidarity leader only under strict state control and in a secret place and was not permitted to visit Gdansk, because the government feared rioting in a town that is historically the scene of labor unrest and rebellion.

In planning the current visit, the government again resisted a get-together with Walesa but reluctantly agreed to it on condition that it be unofficial and deleted from the Pope’s formal schedule, according to Father Roberto Tucci, the Vatican’s travel planner.

Unmarked Vehicles

But plans for the meeting became widely known even before John Paul reached Poland. Walesa, accompanied by his wife Danuta and eight children in an unmarked van, was escorted by unmarked police cars to the residence of Bishop Tadeusz Goclowski in Gdansk where the Pope is staying. The caravan whisked past the waiting crowd before Walesa was recognized by the many thousands who had lined the route awaiting the arrival of the Pope.

After the meeting, Walesa was escorted home by police and told reporters waiting there, “The meeting was great. . . , the most beautiful meeting I have ever had. The atmosphere was great. We could just be ourselves. I told him everything I wanted to say.”

Walesa said he laid before the pontiff all the complaints he had built up against Poland’s Communist government, including the economic plight of the country and the ban against Solidarity itself.

Earlier in the day, Walesa told a small group of reporters that he wanted to present the Pope with “opinions on the most important issues which would be different from the official views.”

Unresolved Problems

“The differences between us are considerable,” Walesa went on. “I share the opinion of the intellectuals--that not a single problem of Poland has been resolved, that a system that used to be progressive now hampers development.”

But Walesa said he did not expect the Pope to make a response to these views. “He is so very tired that I want to spare him,” Walesa said. “He has made everything so clear to all that even the biggest fools in Poland should understand what Poland needs. The most important thing I want to speak of to the Pope is the necessity of pluralism in Poland. Without it, Poland won’t make it. . . .

“There is no pluralism of organizations. There is no pluralism at work because we all have to work and then go home, not in the church because you are told only to pray, not in the street because what you have there are only truncheons and riot police.”

He concluded, “It is time to put an end to this. Our goal is not to take over power, nor do we want to fight the regime. We want progress, we want structural changes which will allow Poland to develop economically.”