Papal Visit Honors John Paul

Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday began a four-day pilgrimage to the Polish homeland of his predecessor, honoring the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II while praising this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country as a model of faith.

Thousands of Poles, curious to see a pope who wasn’t Polish, lined many miles of roadway along the German-born Benedict’s route into Warsaw. They cheered his motorcade and waved banners with his picture and the slogan of the visit: Stand firm in your faith.

“I have come to follow in the footsteps of [John Paul’s] life, from his boyhood until his departure for the memorable conclave of 1978” that elected him pope, Benedict said at a formal welcoming ceremony in Warsaw’s Frederic Chopin airport.

“This is no mere sentimental journey,” he said, “but rather a journey of faith.”

The crowds were tiny compared with those drawn by native son John Paul in his eight visits home. But for a capital city in an increasingly secular Europe, the turnout was impressive.

In 13 months as pope, Benedict had traveled outside Italy only once: to Cologne, Germany, for World Youth Day celebrations in August. But that trip was to fulfill his predecessor’s obligations. Poland marks the first destination chosen explicitly by Benedict.

In addition to tying his papacy to that of John Paul, Benedict is seeking to promote the traditional Catholicism that lives on in Poland, more than 15 years after the fall of communism.

Speaking at the red-brick neo-Gothic St. John’s Cathedral, his first stop in Warsaw, Benedict told his audience that he wanted to “inhale ... this atmosphere of faith in which you live.”

Benedict, 79, hopes to harness the religious energy that runs through Poland in contrast to other European nations that have liberalized laws concerning abortion rights, gay marriage and other social topics that the Vatican finds offensive.

An important test for Benedict was how he would be received and whether he would connect with this audience. Poles inevitably looked on this new pope with a degree of ambivalence -- appreciative that he chose to visit Poland but pained by a longing for their Polish pontiff.

They also had to grapple with any misgivings they might have about a pope from a country that brutally occupied their nation and left Warsaw in ruins during World War II.

“We have learned to love Benedict,” said Halina Zawadzke, 55, a retired railroad employee who watched Benedict’s entourage pass. “Of course, when you speak of John Paul II, there is a flutter of the heart. But Benedict, too, is the father of all of us.”

Benedict made a point of beginning each of his speeches by reading a few sentences in Polish, a gesture that received warm applause, before handing off the text to an aide to finish delivery.

To underscore his connection to the late pontiff, Benedict will seek out places and shrines that served as markers in John Paul’s career and evolution as a Christian. He will preside over Mass today in a huge plaza where John Paul’s speech in 1979 is credited with helping to trigger the movement that ended Communist rule in Poland.

Over the weekend, Benedict will make pilgrimages to Wadowice, John Paul’s birthplace, and Krakow, the city where he served as archbishop.

Benedict will conclude the trip Sunday with what is likely to be a haunting prayer ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the Nazis systematically killed more than a million Jews during World War II.

Benedict, who was an unwilling member of the Hitler Youth and, briefly, a soldier in the Nazi army, has repeatedly cited improving Jewish-Catholic relations as an important element in his agenda -- as did John Paul.

At Auschwitz, “I hope especially to meet the survivors of the Nazi terror ... all of whom suffered under that tragic tyranny,” the pope said. “Together we will pray that the wounds of the past century will heal, thanks to the remedy that God in his goodness has prescribed for us by calling on us to forgive one another.”

Speaking earlier to reporters on the papal flight from Rome to Warsaw, Benedict said there was a lesson to draw from the horrors of the Holocaust.

“We must learn how man can truly lose his dignity by trampling on others,” he said.

Asked how he felt as a German going to Auschwitz, the pope downplayed the significance of nationality. “I am above all a Catholic,” he said.

Later, Benedict may have been alluding to his own painful past, or to recent revelations about Polish priests who worked for Communist-era secret police, when he called for compassion and “humble sincerity” in assessing sins of earlier generations.

Noting that John Paul frequently exhorted Catholics to do penance for “infidelities of the past” and to apologize and ask forgiveness, Benedict cautioned:

“We must guard against the arrogant claim of setting ourselves up to judge earlier generations, who lived in different times and different circumstances.

“Humble sincerity is needed in order not to deny the sins of the past, and at the same time not to indulge in facile accusations in absence of real evidence, or without regard for the different preconceptions of the time.”

Despite his past, Benedict has won high marks among several Jewish groups. On his trip to Cologne last year, he made a point of visiting a restored synagogue that had been destroyed by the Nazis during the Kristallnacht riots in November 1938.

“He is touching the crossroads of Jewish history,” said Oded Ben-Hur, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, who is scheduled to participate in the ceremony at Auschwitz. “That sends a very important message.”

Special correspondent Ela Kasprzycka in Warsaw contributed to this report.