Pope ends Czech visit with call for holiness

At an open-air Mass for at least 40,000 worshipers, Benedict issued a call for holiness as he wrapped up his visit to this central European country two decades after the fall of communism.

“The last century - as this land of yours can bear witness - saw the fall of a number of powerful figures who had apparently risen to almost unattainable heights,’’ Benedict said, speaking in Italian.

“Suddenly they found themselves stripped of their power,’’ he said.

Benedict said that those who deny God and appear to lead a comfortable life are in reality “sad and unfulfilled’’ people.

His visit, which began Saturday, came as the country prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which ousted a communist regime that had ruthlessly persecuted believers and confiscated church property.

The 82-year-old pope told believers who packed a meadow in Stara Boleslav, 15 miles northeast of Prague, that they could learn from St. Wenceslas, who was murdered here by his pagan brother in 935.

Although his overall reception was tepid, with no posters or billboards announcing the trip, followers - some from nearby Austria, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia - streamed into Stara Boleslav before dawn.

The Vatican said 40,000 people attended; Czech organizers put the crowd estimate at 50,000.

Czechs are among Europe’s most secular people. In 1991, 4.5 million of the country’s 10 million people said they belonged to a church, but a 2001 census showed that number had plunged to 3.3 million.