Saturday, August 17, 2002
KRAKOW, Poland — Pope John Paul II spent a deeply nostalgic day in his homeland Saturday, sleeping in his old bed, visiting his old street and driving by the disused quarry where he labored during the Nazi occupation.
John Paul's second day in Poland showed that a return home is unlike any other pilgrimage for the ailing 82-year-old pope.
"I wish to say that many of my personal memories are connected with this place," John Paul said at the end of Mass in the just-completed Basilica of God's Mercy, across a field from the Solvay chemical plant and quarry and surrounded by supermarkets and a movie theater complex.
"Until this day I remember this road that led from Borek Falecki to Debniki. Every day I walked this road coming to work for different shifts in wooden shoes that one used to wear in those days.
"How could one imagine that this man in wooden shoes would one day be consecrating" a basilica in Krakow, said John Paul, who worked at Solvay in the 1940s to escape deportation to labor camps in Germany.
Later, his "popemobile" stopped in front of the gray two-story building at No. 10 Tyniecka Street, where he lived with his father after they moved from Wadowice, the pope's birthplace, in 1938. A 7-year-old boy living there now came out and gave John Paul flowers.
"Behind every corner there's a memory," said the pope's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
Tens of thousands of adoring Poles are giving John Paul a joyous welcome home on his ninth, and some fear his last, trip back.
They lined the seven-mile route and shouted, "Long live the pope!" as he arrived to consecrate the new basilica.
Some 4,000 faithful clapped in rhythm as if to propel the frail pope as he made his way down the main aisle on a rolling platform. Nuns waved white handkerchiefs and tiny Vatican flags.
John Paul appeared breathless as he lowered himself into the papal chair by the marble altar.
"You can see he got a bit tired during the ceremony but I believe this pilgrimage will be good to him and he will continue his mission," said Polish-born Jan Kolata, 54, a machinery company supervisor from Chicago standing outside the basilica holding an American flag.
"He's in good shape, intellectually perfect," Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said after private talks with the pontiff Saturday afternoon.
Poles hoped the visit to his homeland would invigorate John Paul, who suffers the symptoms of Parkinson's disease -- trembling hands and slurred speech -- and knee and hip problems.
Consecrating the basilica, John Paul referred to evil in the world, making what appeared to be references to the Sept. 11 terror attacks and their aftermath.
"Where hatred and the thirst for revenge dominate, where war brings suffering and death to the innocent, there the grace of mercy is needed," the pope said, his voice faltering.
Prime Minister Leszek Miller said he told the pope it would not be his last visit and declared the government's readiness to receive him at any time. "Well, if God only allows," he quoted John Paul as responding.
Later in the evening, when the pope appeared for a second night at his window, young people in the square below sang "Stolat," the Polish song meaning "May he live 100 years."
Picked by The Wishman.