Word: benedicts
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...outside of Krakow gave some of his most influential - and intimate - speeches on eight trips as Pope John Paul II to his beloved motherland. And he always addressed the crowds, naturally, in his mother tongue. Still, the attention leading up to this week's trip to Poland by Pope Benedict XVI, in only his second papal voyage, has rivaled some of his predecessor's homecomings...
...opening remarks to dignitaries, clergy and faithful at the Warsaw airport Thursday - and later at the city's main cathedral - there was no avoiding the sounds of the changing of the guard since John Paul died nearly 14 months ago. A skilled linguist like his predecessor, Benedict opened and closed his speeches in Polish, but (as planned) spoke almost exclusively in Italian, the official Vatican tongue, with an aide translating into the local language. There could be no more jarring reality for this passionately Catholic country that had grown used to seeing one of their own in the seat...
...where even the passing of national hero-pope does not translate into a fizzling of faith. Poland in fact remains a bastion of traditional Catholicism in an increasingly secular Europe. Some 96% the population call themselves Roman Catholic, while 57% attend mass every Sunday. "Stand firm in your faith," Benedict told worshipers is the motto for the four-day trip. "I have very much wanted to make this visit to the native land and people of my beloved predecessor, the servant of God John Paul II," the Pope said. "I have come to follow in the footsteps of his life...
...Crowds, in some places five people deep, lined the entire seven-mile route from the airport to the cathedral late Thursday morning. Benedict will visit John Paul's hometown of Wadowice on Saturday, before an open-air mass on Sunday in Krakow, where John Paul served as archbishop, with one million faithful expected to attend. Benedict will close his trip with a solemn visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the occupying Nazi regime killed some 1.5 million people, most of them Jews. It is a trip that John Paul made on his first return to Poland as Pope...
...Benedict, who previously made the trip as a Cardinal, was asked by journalists on the plane how he felt about visiting Auschwitz "as a German." The Pope responded: "I am above all a Catholic. I must say that this is the most important point." Nationalities, he said, can help fulfill the "togetherness of the communion of the Catholic Church." After his election last April, Benedict said he saw a "providential design" in a Polish pope being succeeded by a German one. "Both popes in their youth - both on different sides and in different situations - were forced to experience the barbarity...