John Paul II Charms the Crowds

Almost as soon as the white woolen pallium of office was draped around his shoulders, Pope John Paul II began asserting a vigorous personal style. Before week's end that style ruffled the Vatican's starchy bureaucracy, but it also charmed a watching world.

More than 200,000 people were packed into St. Peter's Square when Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, 58, Archbishop of Cracow, received the ceremonial vestment as the 263rd successor to St. Peter and spiritual leader of some 700 million Roman Catholics. As the Cardinals of the church filed forward to pay him homage, he spoke warmly, and often at length, with each, disregarding the presence of television cameras. The most electric moment came when Poland's Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski knelt to kiss the papal ring. John Paul lifted his stern old mentor to his feet, embraced him, then kissed the Polish primate's own ring.

After the Mass celebrating the start of his ministry, the new Pope strode to the edge of the crowd, carrying his heavy, crucifix-topped staff. Then, with a vigorous gesture reminiscent of Eastern Orthodox services, he thrust it up like a giant sword of faith. When a young boy rushed out with flowers, a Vatican official tried to shoo him off. John Paul called the boy forward and hugged him.

As the week unfolded, John Paul was greeted by exuberant well-wishers --among them 5,000 Polish pilgrims allowed temporary visas out of their Communist-ruled homeland. With a gifted preacher's polished delivery, the Pope addressed the throngs fluently in five languages, then plunged into their midst to shake outstretched hands. For Vatican and Italian police, the public appearances were a security nightmare. For officials of the papal household, they were also somewhat of an embarrassment: the Pope's white cassock sleeve cuffs sometimes became covered with lipstick marks.

At midweek John Paul spent the afternoon visiting his papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, 15 miles south of Rome. The village crowds, accustomed to a more distant papal style, roared with approval as he stood up to wave from the back of his open black Mercedes. On the balcony of the bedroom in which Pope Paul VI died last August, John Paul told the crowd with a smile: "Our first meeting has been very warm, very noisy, and I hope very religious."

The unrestrained good will was just as visible with world leaders. When John Paul held a private audience with Polish President Henryk Jablonski, he reportedly won assurances that his homeland's doors would always be open to him. With France's President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the new Pope spoke of world issues and of the universality of faith. With an envoy of Lebanese Maronite Rite bishops, he presided over a lengthy audience and told reporters later: "A visit to Lebanon could be very useful. But above all we must find a solution. My heart is very troubled by Lebanon."

Behind the public image, another side of the Pope was emerging: that of a strong-minded decision maker. Instead of rubber-stamping the reappointments of senior Curia officials, John Paul announced that he needed time to ponder them. That stirred flutters of prelatic concern--was a reshuffle in store? He did fill the top Curia post of Secretary of State by reap-pointing Jean Cardinal Villot, 73, but he made a point of saying the assignment was 'Tor the initial period of our pontificate." Nonetheless, by naming a foreigner to the post, he passed up an opportunity to ease the Italian prelates' discomfiture at serving the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years.

If John Paul showed that he could be firm, he also demonstrated he could be highly unpredictable. An example came last week with his trip to a Rome hospital to see ailing Bishop Andre-Marie Deskur, the same friend he had visited the day after his election. According to church sources, when the Pope slipped quietly out of the Vatican for his return visit, he wore a priest's black cassock and was whisked off in a car with Rome license plates--instead of using his telltale Mercedes with its Vatican plates. It was an almost unheard-of thing for a Pope to do, and there was no official confirmation of the trip. But set against the week's other gestures, it seemed entirely in character.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.