Pope John Paul II today sets out on a long walk down memory lane when he travels to his native Poland for a four-day pastoral visit to Krakow. Although this 98th overseas trip of the pontificate, the ninth to Poland, has elements of pastoral, religious and political significance, it remains a personal visit by an ailing old man to his beloved homeland. Paddy Agnew reports from Rome.
So personal and private is this visit that for months there has been speculation that the Pope will announce his "renunciation" of the papal seat this weekend and retire to a monastery somewhere in the Tatra mountains. Vatican sources have consistently dismissed such an unlikely scenario.
The 82-year-old Pope will meet senior Polish state figures, including the Prime Minister, Mr Leszek Miller. Tomorrow he will preside over the inauguration of the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy at Lagiewniki, 12 km outside Krakow, whilst on Sunday he will beatify Polish Bishop Sigismondo Felinski, in front of an expected two million strong gathering.
Those official high points will pale by comparison with the emotive impact of a trip which will see the Pope pray at his parents' grave in Rakowice, visit the Cathedral of Wawel where he celebrated his first Mass 56 years ago, and visit places where he first secretly studied to become a priest.
Until he was elected Pope in 1978, John Paul II had lived out nearly all his pastoral mission in Krakow, from his priestly ordination in 1946 through to becoming the city's bishop and then Cardinal. Not surprisingly, even some of the official engagements of next weekend have particular private connotations for the Pope. For instance, on Monday he will celebrate mass at the sanctuary of Kalwaria Zedrydowska, 40 km outside Krakow and a shrine he often visited with his father.
From Kalwaria Zedrydowska, the Pope will take a short helicopter ride back to Krakow airport before returning to Rome. Even this ride may continue the walk down memory lane since, weather permitting, the helicopter may stop to circle over Wadowice, the village where the Pope was born on May 18th, 1920.
Given the Pope's all too obviously frail health - he suffers from Parkinson's disease and severe arthritis - his ninth return to Poland as Pope becomes all the more poignant since it could well be his last visit to his native land. Even if the Pope yet again defies that prophecy - after all, this will be his third "last trip" to Poland - this visit still remains special in that it affords Poland and the world a chance to recall what John Paul did for his beleagured compatriots back in the heady days of the Solidarnosc movement in the early 1980s.
Even one of his most redoubtable adversaries of those days, Gen Wojech Jaruzelski, the man who imposed martial law in Poland in 1981, paid tribute to the Pope this week, telling the Milan daily, Corriere Della Sera: "He is the most illustrious Pole of the 20th century. He was a wise adversary, worthy of respect. We disagreed on many things and we (the Polish government) would never have been able to accept certain church standards but yet, today, looking back, I must admit that he was right about a lot of things."
Returning to a Poland of escalating social unrest and 17 per cent unemployment, a country that to some extent would appear to have turned its back on his Christian teachings, Pope John Paul is certain to promote Poland's move towards full membership of the European Union, calling on Poles and Europeans alike to acknowledge the common "Christian soul" of the old continent and all its member countries, East and West.