Pope Fears the Loss of Hard-Won Church Gains in Soviet Union : Reaction: John Paul’s enthusiastic tour of Eastern Europe ends on a glum note.

Pope John Paul II, who embarked in high spirits on a swing through Eastern Europe a week ago, grimly returned home Tuesday, praising former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and praying that liberalizing reforms in the Soviet Union survive his fall.

“Faced with the news that comes from the Soviet Union, our prayers become even more intense to ask God that that great country may be spared further tragedy. I express my hope that in prayer the efforts made in recent years to restore voice and dignity to a whole society will not now be endangered,” John Paul said at a final Mass in Hungary before embarking for Rome.

The pontiff’s first public reaction to the news from Moscow mirrors profound Vatican concern. In the Vatican view, Gorbachev’s ouster imperils a religious renaissance in the Soviet Union, and at the same time critically undercuts the Pope’s dream of a Europe united from the Urals to the Atlantic.

An immediate casualty of the putsch will be a long-rumored papal visit to the Soviet Union next year to accept an invitation extended by Gorbachev to John Paul at their historic Vatican summit in 1989.

“I recall with gratitude the meeting I had with President Gorbachev on the two occasions he wished to visit me,” the Pope said in remarks scripted as an addition to the Mass at the Catholic basilica here honoring St. Stephen, Hungary’s patron saint. “I particularly appreciated the sincere desire that guided him and the lofty inspiration that animated him in the promotion of human rights and dignity, as well as in his commitment for the well-being of the country and of the international community. May the process initiated by him not fall into decline.”

John Paul embarked Aug. 13 on a nostalgic three-day return to his Polish roots and his first pastoral visit to Hungary with the no-cares air of a man beginning his summer vacation.

There was scant levity among the papal retinue on the flight home Tuesday. At the airport in Rome, the Pope made quick work of welcoming protocol, and stood talking alone on the tarmac for about five minutes with Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s foreign minister.

The fear now among Vatican officials traveling with John Paul is that the church’s hard-won gains, at least in the Soviet Union, may be hostage to Gorbachev’s fate. The Vatican exchanged ambassadors with Moscow soon after Gorbachev’s visit. John Paul has subsequently dispatched a cardinal back to the Ukraine after a 38-year exile and named a bishop in Moscow itself for the first time.

On his visit through Eastern Europe--implacable enemy territory for four, long, gray decades--the Pope repeatedly exalted the spectacle of Europe, as he put it, “again breathing with both lungs.”

The end of East-West ideological division in Europe clears the way for a brave new tomorrow, the Pope believes: He envisions an unprecedented continental unity forged from a foundation of common Christian moral values. To pursue his vision, he has summoned bishops from all of Europe to the Vatican later this year for an unprecedented synod.

At he left Hungary, John Paul underlined his theme one last time. From the altar, he prayed for “all the peoples of Europe as I invoke the Lord’s Benediction for their future; that it will always conform to the Christian values and roots that made Europe great.”

Other global reaction to Gorbachev’s fall included:

East Bloc Moves

In Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia bolstered its security arrangements and restricted the entrance of Soviet citizens because of fears of a mass exodus of refugees, the official CTK news agency reported.

The Czech government said it is sending 6,000 soldiers to join 450 troops and border guards on the frontier with the Ukraine. A first contingent of 60 troops was sent to the 62-mile border on Monday, followed by 200 men from the Cheb and Susice garrisons in western Bohemia on Tuesday.

A rapid intervention force also has been formed to protect Prague’s international airport and other civil airfields, CTK said, adding that police have stepped up their guard at radio and television stations in Prague and in Bratislava in Slovakia.

Meantime, students in Bulgaria, another former Soviet satellite, chanted anti-coup slogans outside the Soviet Embassy late into the night.

Romanian Prime Minister Petre Roman said the coup was an attempt to re-establish hard-line communism in the most Stalinist manner.

Dozens of Soviets in Poland to trade Soviet-made wares lined up outside Western embassies to apply for visas.

Kohl’s Demand

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on Tuesday demanded that Moscow’s hard-line leaders reinstate Gorbachev. Kohl, still thankful to Gorbachev for allowing German unification last October, threw his weight behind a similar call by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

Of all Western states, Germany, which Gorbachev allowed to reunite after four decades of Soviet-imposed division, has benefited most from Gorbachev’s reforms politically and has invested most in its struggling economy. Given those factors and new uncertainty in Moscow, German experts on Soviet affairs argued that the hard-liners could fail and Gorbachev or some other reformer could return.

Kohl, who interrupted a holiday to return to Bonn, had said on Monday that Germany would honor its commitments to Moscow. But he said Moscow must continue withdrawing its remaining 272,000 troops from eastern Germany and live up to its pledge to respect democracy and the rule of law agreed upon at a European security summit in Paris last November.

Tokyo Condemnation

In a strongly worded statement in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu told a news conference Tuesday night, “If the present situation continues, we would have to halt all aid to the Soviet Union for the time being.”

He previously had suggested that it was “highly likely” that the recent change in leadership was unconstitutional but seemed unwilling to make the outright condemnation other Western nations have made.

“They (the Soviet government) have the right to decide whether it (the coup) is constitutional or unconstitutional,” said Taizo Watanabe, a government spokesman.

Kaifu’s statements fell far short of either condemning the Soviet Union’s new leaders or demanding Gorbachev’s reinstatement, as Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States have done.

“We are urging the Soviet Union to get back on the right approach to perestroika, “ a Japanese government spokesman said. He stressed that Japan’s central concern is that the new Soviet government continue those policies.

An editorial in Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s most prestigious newspapers, warned that “we would be overreacting if we respond with a hard-line posture, as if the taking of power by the military and law enforcement authorities represented a return to militarism in the Soviet Union.” The paper called on Western governments to maintain open channels to the Soviets.

Although the government advised tourists against traveling to the Soviet Union, a group of 125 Japanese went ahead with plans to visit Soviet-held Shikotan Island off Hokkaido to visit family graves.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called for a pause in military spending cuts following the hard-line coup in the Soviet Union. But Defense Secretary Tom King said Tuesday that the planned cuts are all long-range and there are no current cuts to cancel them.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph published Tuesday, Thatcher said it was “no time to proceed with defense cuts, either here or in NATO. We must pause to see whether the coup will stick,” she said.

But in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, King insisted that “there is nothing happening now anyway, so we don’t have anything to pause.”

King recently announced details of plans to cut British army strength from 160,000 to 116,000 by the mid-1990s. France and Germany have also made plans for force reductions.

“We’re talking about changes, a number of which won’t happen for three or four years,” King said. And he said some cuts are contingent on the Soviet Union keeping its promise to withdraw troops from Germany and Poland.

Iraq claimed Tuesday that it inspired Gorbachev’s overthrow, and the Iraqi News Agency said President Saddam Hussein had received a message from acting Soviet President Gennady I. Yanayev.

“Iraq’s right and steadfastness was one of the main reasons behind the fall (of Gorbachev) . . . because it (Iraq) exposed (his) policy of treason and conspiracy,” Hussein’s press secretary, Abdul-Jabbar Mohsen, wrote in the government newspaper Al Jumhouriyah.

The Iraqi News Agency said Hussein’s message from Yanayev was delivered to the Foreign Ministry by the Soviet charge d’affairs.

Meantime, in Jordan, the liberal newspaper Al Rai said Gorbachev’s downfall showed that Saddam Hussein was correct when he predicted that “many leaders will be beheaded” in the wake of the war.

And in Libya, the government radio quoted leader Moammar Kadafi as praising the coup leaders for their “brave historical action.”

Vietnam is unlikely to mourn Gorbachev’s political demise and might even gain financially by a return to hard-line communism in the Soviet Union, a government official said Tuesday.

“Vietnam would probably not feel sorry to see (the end of the Soviet president’s career) because Gorbachev has made many mistakes . . . too many compromises with the West,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “He has also made the position and the role of the Soviet Union in the world weaker.”

The official said a return to hard-line Communist rule in the Soviet Union could help the Vietnamese: “These changes would also affect positively Vietnam’s economy because the West would carry out a hard policy towards the Soviet Union, then the latter would look for trade relations with such countries as Vietnam and China.”

Leftist rebels in El Salvador said Tuesday that they were worried by Gorbachev’s overthrow and warned Washington against reviving a Cold War approach to this Central American nation’s civil war.

This story was compiled from Times staff and wire reports.