Word: homelands
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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John Paul brings a message of unity and hope to his weary homeland...
...second moment of high drama in the Pope's eight-day pilgrimage to his homeland was expected to occur this week, when he met with Lech Walesa, the ebullient, mustachioed electrician who has become an international symbol of the outlawed Solidarity movement. The Pope's conversations with the two main protagonists on the Polish scene would accent the central position that the church continues to occupy there. The visit also underscored the Pope's moral authority. Initially, the government had refused to allow Walesa to see him. It relented only after John Paul insisted upon the session...
...surprise that the same Pope who had visited Argentina and Britain during the Falklands war would want to try his brand of diplomacy in Poland. After five years in the Vatican-and 17 foreign pilgrimages-John Paul's longing for his homeland has, if anything, only deepened. When reporters accompanying him on the Alitalia 727 jet from Rome last week asked him what he felt like now that he was going home, John Paul responded with a single English word: "Myself...
...today, under military rule, Poland has grown sullen and weary. By returning to his homeland in its hour of need, John Paul wanted to revive the spirit of his compatriots. Said a Vatican confidant of the Pope: "Some people in Poland expect the Pope to perform a miraculous change in the situation. But the Pope has only one wish-to bring a degree of unity and a measure of hope to a divided nation in which the people see no hope...
...down to the tarmac and, in his traditional gesture of respect, knelt to kiss the asphalt. While Polish President Henryk Jablonski looked on, the Pope explained with emotion that he had kissed the ground, "as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother." Said John Paul: "I consider it my duty to be with my compatriots in this sublime and difficult moment...