"My Heart Will Stay"

By John Kohan

After the Pope's triumphant visit, Jaruzelski faces difficult choices

From the very beginning, Pope John Paul II's return visit to Poland seemed a bold gamble. The government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski had made no secret of the fact that it viewed the papal pilgrimage as a way to rehabilitate Poland in the eyes of the world. But if the authorities thought they could manipulate the Polish-born Pontiff, they were mistaken. John Paul was determined to speak his mind and his heart, however uncomfortable he made his secular hosts. As the Pope moved across Poland, he showed by word and gesture that he understood the meaning of the euphoric parenthesis of freedom that Poles had known for 16 months after the creation of the independent Solidarity trade union. Worse, in the government's view, millions of Poles responded to the Pope with joy, expectation and, in some cases, displays of antigovernment defiance.

In the aftermath of John Paul's visit, Poland's military leaders would have to decide whether to jolt the country with another crackdown or take advantage of the good will generated by the Pope. To salvage his reputation in Moscow and among hard-liners at home, Jaruzelski needed to counter the Pontiff's bold words with stern action. To win Western support for Poland's listing economy, he would have to go even further in reaching out to the church and society. Jaruzelski could, of course, also choose to do nothing, as if the Pope had never come. But as a State Department analyst warned last week: "Poland is an emotional and volatile nation. The Pope may have lit a time bomb."

Just as John Paul was preparing to board the Soviet-built Ilyushin jet that would take him back to Rome, President Reagan sent the Jaruzelski government a message on what the U.S. expected from the papal visit. Addressing a group of Polish Americans in Chicago, many of whom were waving Solidarity pennants, Reagan described the Pope's visit as "a ray of hope for the Polish people." The President hinted that if Poland's military rulers decided to follow the path of liberalization, the Western alliance would consider lifting economic sanctions. Said Reagan: "I urge the Polish authorities to translate the restraint they showed during the papal visit into willingness to move toward reconciliation with the Polish people."

The Kremlin and its Warsaw Pact allies were uncharacteristically silent. But the subject of Poland is sure to come up at a meeting of Warsaw Pact leaders that could occur in Moscow as early as this week. For the Soviets, there was at least one disturbing sign that the Polish disease may be creeping across East-bloc borders. During a government-sponsored peace congress in Prague, a group of 300 youths marched toward Wenceslas Square, the scene of protests after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and shouted, "We want peace! We want freedom!" The demonstration was small by Polish standards, but it was one of the largest public displays of opposition in Czechoslovakia in at least a decade.

In a dramatic move on the eve of the Pope's departure, Jaruzelski traveled to Cracow for a surprise second meeting with John Paul. Polish television later gave prominent play to film clips of the general greeting the Pope at Wawel Castle. Jaruzelski appeared more at ease with John Paul than he had been during their first encounter in Warsaw a week earlier. Except for a bland communique noting that "further contacts between the Apostolic See and Poland will serve the good of the state and the church," there were few clues about what the two leaders discussed during the 1-hr. 37-min. session. Official spokesmen said that Jaruzelski had come at the church's behest, but there were unconfirmed reports that the Polish authorities had asked for the meeting so that Jaruzelski could garner what prestige he could from the papal visit.

The general's unexpected appearance in Cracow upstaged John Paul's meeting with onetime Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa. After days of conflicting signals about where and when the controversial visit would take place, Walesa, his wife Danuta and four of their seven children were flown to Cracow and whisked to a nearby monastery. On the morning of the Pope's departure, the Walesa family was reportedly taken to a vacation home in a valley near the Tatra Mountain resort of Zakopane, where John Paul liked to ski when he was Archbishop of Cracow.

If Poles had looked forward to the meeting of their two favorite sons, the result was disappointing. While John Paul met with the Walesa family, a tight ring of security police kept the press at a safe distance. As if to stress the unofficial nature of their meeting, the Vatican went out of its way to describe it as a private audience. John Paul apparently explained to Walesa that his militant stand was an obstacle to improving Poland's domestic problems. The former Solidarity leader seemed subdued when he returned to Gdansk. "It is not important who negotiates but what is negotiated," he said. "If there are better people to do that, then O.K., let them go ahead."

In a front-page article published one day after the Pope's return to Rome, the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano wrote, "Officially, Lech Walesa passes once more from the scene. We can say that he has lost the battle." The message may have been too blunt. On Saturday, the article's author, Father Virgilio Levi, resigned as deputy editor.

Polish officials expressed irritation several times during the Pope's stay with the way the visit was progressing. In an interview that appeared on the front pages of government and party newspapers, Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski spoke out against "educators who treat history in an uncritical manner" and encourage Polish youths to believe "myths, legends and half-truths." It was a clear reference to John Paul's homily in Czestochowa, in which he cited examples of heroic self-sacrifice from Poland's 1,000-year history. Foreign Minister Stefan Olszowski blamed "Western countries and their media" for turning the papal visit into an "antisocialist demonstration." Equally blunt criticism came from Government Spokesman Jerzy Urban, who hinted that "relations between church and state" might be damaged by the Pope's visit. Said he: "We did not rent him the country for a week."

In an effort to ease church-state tensions, Vatican Spokesman Father Romeo Panciroli deplored the "political interpretations" of events that were "exclusively religious and moral." Before leaving Czestochowa, John Paul also pointedly offered a prayer "for those who wield authority on Polish soil." But he seemed determined to buttress the church's role as the sole mediator between the state and the Polish people. In a special meeting of the Polish episcopate, he urged the church hierarchy to "respond to the need to hear the truth, which is so acute in society." John Paul provided plenty of examples on the remaining stops of a tour that, according to some estimates, brought him in contact with almost a third of Poland's 36 million people.

Protected from the blazing sun by umbrellas and hats made from folded newspapers, 500,000 people filled Poznan's Park of Culture for an open-air Mass. Some of them, like one taxi driver who had walked all night from his village twelve miles away, had turned the Pope's visit into a personal pilgrimage. Gathered together, they seemed to represent a cross section of the Polish nation. Sunburned farmers in baggy suits and wide ties stood side by side with teen-agers in blue jeans, wearing T shirts printed with words like KUNG FU. There were aged veterans, their chests bristling with medals, and pretty young girls in floral-print summer dresses. As before, red-and-white banners bearing slogans like HOLY FATHER, BLESS SOLIDARITY vied for the Pope's attention with wooden crosses and religious pictures.

While the bells of Poznan pealed and a full-voiced choir intoned a hymn, John Paul mounted the red-carpeted stairway leading to the altar and a gigantic reproduction of the icon of the Black Madonna. With the timing of a seasoned performer, he paused halfway to raise both arms in a gesture of blessing. Then the Pope joined 20 bishops in golden robes in a solemn ceremony beatifying Sister Urszula Ledochowska, a Polish educator who organized Catholic schools before World War I. As the Pope conferred on Sister Urszula the title "blessed," the next-to-last step in the arduous path to sainthood, a life-size portrait of the nun in simple gray habit was unveiled.

As at other stops, the religious ceremony in Poznan had its political moments. The Pope praised farmers of the region for struggling to retain their "profound link with the land." Referring directly to the banned independent farmers' union, John Paul recalled the support that the late Polish Primate Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski had shown to "representatives of Rural Solidarity" during a meeting in April 1981. The crowd roared even louder when John Paul told them he had come to "kneel in this place and pay homage," in a reference to a memorial to Polish workers slain in Poznan during riots in 1956. The monument, which consists of two intertwined crosses next to a stylized Polish eagle, was erected during the Solidarity era and was conspicuously omitted from the list of papal stops in the city.

Following the Mass over loudspeakers, hundreds of thousands of people lined the flower-strewn streets. Some balanced precariously on bridge railings in hope of catching just a glimpse of the waving Pontiff as he sped by in his Popemobile. If John Paul could not visit the Poznan memorial, a crowd of several hundred people managed to avoid police blockades and rally by the twin crosses. A lonely yellow-and-white papal banner was left behind in the empty torch of an eternal flame that was extinguished soon after the military crackdown in December 1981.

Brilliant sunshine gave way to rain later in the day when the Pope reached Katowice, a steel-producing city in the Upper Silesian coal-mining region. The heavy downpour did little to dampen the spirit of the crowd of 1.2 million that was waiting for John Paul under a forest of umbrellas in a vacant airfield outside the city. When the Silesians spotted the Pope stepping from the papal helicopter, they let loose with a boisterous chorus of Sto Lat (May You Live a Hundred Years), all but drowning out a brass band of black-suited miners.

Protected from the rain by a yellow-and-white canopy, John Paul teased the crowd about the inclement weather. "Are you wet?" he asked. "Yes!" they roared back. "After so many hours of preparation in prayer do you still have enough strength to listen to the Pope? Are you not too tired and exhausted?" "No!" they thundered in response. Finally, the Pope playfully conceded that "the hard-working people of this industrial region do not easily tire of praying."

Successive Communist leaders have tried to win over the workers of Katowice with material benefits, but the city's residents have remained firmly loyal to the church and, more recently, to Solidarity. Thus it was no surprise that John Paul waited until he had gone to Poland's industrial heartland to deliver his strongest sermon on the rights of workers. Standing under the Madonna of Piekary, an image of the Virgin Mary much revered by the region's coal miners, John Paul told his predominantly proletarian audience that work is "at the heart of all social life" and is governed "by a just moral order." He added: "If this order is missing, injustice takes the place of justice, and love is replaced by hatred."

The "events before December 1981," the Pope continued in a typically euphemistic reference to the Solidarity era, reflected the need to restore moral order and bore "the stamp of religion." Quoting from his 1981 encyclical Laborem exercens (On Human Work), the Pope reaffirmed the church's commitment to free trade unions. Then he said: "It was in this spirit that I spoke in January 1981, during an audience granted to the delegation of Solidarity."

The Pope's first direct mention of the banned trade union drew a delirious response. Chants of "Solidarnosc! Solidarnosc!"and "Long live the Pope!" resounded across the airfield. When the crowd burst into another chorus of May You Live a Hundred Years, John Paul finally motioned for silence. "I am still alive," he quipped, "and would like to go on delivering my speech." After calling for "a true dialogue between the authorities and society," he concluded with a tribute to seven miners who were killed during a confrontation with the police at a nearby mine during the opening days of martial law. Said John Paul solemnly: "Let us remember all the deceased workers, those who were victims of mortal accidents in the mines or in other places, those who lost their lives in the recent tragic events. All of them."

The Pope traveled the next day to Wroclaw, an industrial city in southwestern Poland that has also been the scene of heated clashes between riot police and Solidarity demonstrators. Security officials were afraid that an unguarded word from John Paul would spark renewed street violence. On the eve of the visit, convoys of blue and gray military and police vehicles patrolled the city. Helicopters hovered ominously above as pilgrims made their way in the early-morning light to the city's race track for an open-air Mass.

When the Pope finally arrived, he met a cheering throng of almost 1 million, spread out as far as the eye could see. In the tumultuous welcome, red flags emblazoned with white Polish eagles waved above the crowd along with banners proclaiming SOLIDARITY IS ALIVE. Then, just as John Paul prepared to celebrate Mass, a solitary stork soared overhead. Many saw it as an omen of good fortune.

Steering clear of overtly political references, John Paul delivered a sermon on Christ's famous beatitude "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." In a powerful and resonant voice, the Pope made a passionate plea for national reconciliation. Said he: "Inch by inch and day by day, it is necessary to build up trust--and to deepen trust." But the word solidarity kept cropping up. He told all those who worked that he brought his "solidarity and that of the church." A "hunger for righteousness," he explained, developed from "love of the homeland and from solidarity, that is to say from a sense of common good." Each time, the crowd broke in with wild applause, and hundreds of thousands of hands shot into the air in the now familiar V-for-victory sign.

After the Pope left the Wroclaw race track, most of the crowd quietly headed home. Some people stopped on the way to pray in front of the altar or to kiss the sculpted armrests of the papal throne. But a group of several hundred youths veered toward the city center, shouting Solidarity slogans. While several Wroclaw residents whistled and shouted "Gestapo!" from apartment windows, a column of riot police charged and sent the protesters running home. But even security officers could not resist gathering in the courtyard of a local police station to watch as the papal chopper passed overhead on the way to the shrine at St. Anne's Mountain.

John Paul's return to his home town of Cracow was announced with a resounding boom from Wawel Hill, where eight men labored to ring Zygmunt, a large bell heard only on the most special occasions. Excited crowds laid a double row of flowers, blossom to stem, along the route the Pope would follow to the Archbishop's residence. As his motorcade passed, they surged against the restraining metal barricades to wave to him. Once John Paul settled in at the residence that had been his home before he was elected Pontiff, the crowd began to shout, "We want the Pope! We want the Pope!"

Their wish was fulfilled. Emerging on the second-floor balcony, John Paul began a 20-minute dialogue with the crowd. When he said how thankful he was to be home a second time, they shouted back, "Come a third time!" Obviously enjoying himself, the Pope reminded his well-wishers that they had kept him from sleeping when he had visited the city as a "young Pope." He wistfully added, "Now I am an old Pope." With one voice, those assembled in the streets responded: "You are young! You are young!" John Paul finally brought the impromptu papal audience to an end. "Four years ago, you managed to make me do what you wanted," he jokingly said. "But now I am an old man, and I am not going to let you do it to me again."

The next morning some 2 million people, more than three tunes the entire population of Cracow, gathered for Mass in a green meadow not far from the city center. Looking at the multitude of faces, John Paul urged his countrymen to consider the example of two Poles whom he had come to beatify: Father Rafael Kalinowski and Adam Chmielowski. Both men had struggled in the unsuccessful Polish uprising against Russian rule in 1863 and learned a strength of the spirit, the Pope said, "more powerful than any situation, not excluding the arrogant use of power." The contemporary analogy to military rule was not lost on his audience.

During his 15 years as Archbishop and later Cardinal of Cracow, the Pope had waged a successful struggle with the authorities to build the first church in Nowa Huta. The steel town, which was built on the outskirts of the city just after World War II, had been designed as a model Communist community without churches. Last week John Paul returned to the scene of his spiritual triumph to consecrate the second church to be completed in the district. But he also went to offer words of comfort to a community embittered by violent clashes with the police on May 1 that claimed the life of a young worker.

Speaking from the steps of the modernistic new sanctuary, John Paul told the million people gathered on the grass and on hundreds of balconies in surrounding apartment blocks that the church could be built only because of "Christian solidarity." There was that emotion-laden word again; although the Pope was not referring specifically to the banned union, the crowd applauded loudly. He pressed on with his speech and ended with a call for national unity. Said John Paul: "When I came to Poland I kissed the sacred ground, saying it was a kiss of peace. I say the same in Nowa Huta. I care about the good will of the whole nation. Peace to you, Poland."

The Pope's final day of religious meetings inspired yet another political demonstration. Pouring out of the papal Mass in Cracow, over 20,000 demonstrators marched toward Nowa Huta chanting, "We are Poland" and "Best wishes to the underground." A police helicopter made repeated passes overhead, ordering the marchers to disperse and "give the Pope a good impression." But they continued on their way to Nowa Huta. When they started to head back to Cracow, a column of police Jeeps and vans suddenly appeared to cut off their path, and the crowd broke up. Said a woman who had joined the march: "We are afraid when the Pope is not here. But now we are free. This is the one day we can show what we feel."

All told, Poles had seen eight days of solemn pageantry and seething protest. But it was not a long time for a nation that measures out its suffering in decades and centuries. As John Paul bid farewell to the crowds in Nowa Huta, they started up the plaintive chant: "Stay with us! Stay with us!" To console them, the Pope replied: "My heart will stay with you." His homeland would need all his faith and hope to face an uncertain future alone.

--By John Kohan.

Reported by Roland Flamini, John Moody and Thomas A. Sancton with the Pope

With reporting by Roland Flamini, John Moody, Thomas A. Sancton This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.