For Poles, native son's papacy was turning point

WADOWICE, Poland -- Sister Magdalena was in church when her nation's prayers were answered.

The date was Oct. 16, 1978, and the place was a little town in Communist-ruled Poland called Wadowice. Sister Magdalena and other Nazarene nuns were at Mass when a priest burst out of the sacristy to make what he said was a ''very important announcement."

For Poles, calling the announcement ''very important" might have been the understatement of the millennium. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, archbishop of Krakow and a native of Wadowice, had just been elected pope.

''There was great joy, tears, singing," Sister Magdalena said.

Happy as she was at the time, she said she had not yet fully grasped the significance of what had just happened.

But most everybody in Wadowice, where Pope John Paul II was born, baptized, and grew up; in Krakow, where he was ordained a priest, served as cardinal, and lived for 40 years before becoming pontiff; or anyplace else in Poland, for that matter, surely understands the significance now.

''It was a turning point in our history," said the Rev. Jozef Nowobilski, director of Krakow's Archdiocese Museum, who was ordained in 1974 by Cardinal Wojtyla.

Part of that turning point came from winning freedom from four decades of communist rule, but most Poles say it was even bigger than that. The election of Pope John Paul II meant liberation for the Poles, oppressed and occupied for centuries as a stomping ground for Europe's great powers.

''We simply stopped being afraid," said Krzysztof Kozlowski, deputy editor of the influential Catholic weekly newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny.

From 1772 until the fall of the Soviet-sponsored communist government in 1989, Poland had enjoyed little true independence. The 20th century was especially brutal, with Poles enduring occupation at the hands of two of history's most nefarious regimes: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.

''The history of Poland has been filled with tragedy and disasters," Kozlowski said. ''From that moment on, we have been only successful."

Having John Paul in the Vatican brought Poland pride, confidence, and respect. It gave the country something it never had before -- a home-grown hero who was admired and respected around the world.

''Suddenly there appeared on the scene a man who was Polish but had a universal mission, and this was a source of great national pride," said Stefan Wilkanowicz, director of the Christian Cultural Foundation, a Catholic lay organization based in Krakow. ''Many people see it this way: This nation gave the world this pope, therefore this nation must be a great nation."

When people here speak about the pontiff, it sounds as though they are discussing a beloved family member -- a wise, kindly, and sometimes stern patriarch on whom they counted for guidance and inspiration.

Poles commonly refer to John Paul as ''our pope" or ''our Holy Father." During the pontiff's last visit to Poland in August 2002, one young man affectionately referred to him as ''Our Holy Dad."

The first pontiff to visit a synagogue and a mosque, and who called anti-Semitism a ''sin against God," John Paul was instrumental in prodding this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation to be tolerant toward other religions.

When revelations surfaced in 2001 that Polish civilians had clubbed, hacked, and burned 1,600 Jews to death in the summer of 1941 in the village of Jedwabne -- a massacre previously blamed on the Nazi army -- it shook Poland's self-image as innocent victims in World War II.

But President Aleksander Kwasniewski quickly issued a strong apology, in which he begged the ''souls of the dead and their families for forgiveness" in the name of the Polish people.

Many here said the pontiff's strong stance against anti-Semitism created the atmosphere in which Kwasniewski could make such an apology without suffering political damage.

''John Paul has made the situation very difficult for anti-Semites," Wilkanowicz said. ''Now it is possible to say to them, 'If you are anti-Semitic, then you are against the pope.' "

Poles firmly believe that it was John Paul's election in 1978, and his first visit home to Poland as pope in 1979, that sparked the fall of communism across Eastern Europe a decade later.

Kozlowski, who served in Poland's first postcommunist government, said the number of secret police informants dropped dramatically after 1978. By the fall of communism here in 1989, there were virtually none left, he said.

Many Poles in the pope's home region said that a nationally televised Mass, which the pontiff celebrated before 1 million people gathered in a Krakow meadow in 1979, was a turning point.

''Before I leave this place I ask you to accept the whole heritage whose name is Poland once again with the faith, hope, and love that Christ instills in us at baptism, so that you will never doubt, falter, or get disheartened; so that you will not cut yourself from the roots that are the foundation of us all," the pontiff said in the sermon.

Cardinal Franciszek Macharski of Krakow likened the sermon to ''dynamite targeted right at the base of the Berlin Wall."

In August 1980, just 14 months after the first papal visit, an electrician named Lech Walesa formed the Solidarity trade union, spurring a massive grass-roots movement against communism.

The formal fall of Polish communism did not provide dramatic television images like those of jubilant Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall. Such images had come a decade earlier, Poles say, during a visit that paved the way for the ''revolutions of 1989."

As Kozlowski said, ''If a Polish cardinal can become pope, then anything is possible."