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CNN Sunday Morning

Pope John Paul II Visits His Hometown

Aired August 18, 2002 - 11:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: More than two million people turned out for an open air mass by Pope John Paul II in his homeland of Poland. CNN's Chris Burns is in Krakow now with the latest on the pope's visit. Hi, there, Chris.
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. Well, over my shoulder is Vavel (ph) Cathedral, and that is where Pope John Paul II is expected to pay a private visit this afternoon, a place where he became priest, bishop and archbishop, and where the kings of Poland were crowned and buried. And many people believe that he belongs there as well for his final resting place. Anyone's guess if that is the truth.

He's going on later this evening to see his parents and brother's graves. So very much a retracing of his footsteps. After this morning, when he had a very emotional meeting with two million, more than two million Poles who filled an open air mass today -- a very, very impressive, very moving event, probably on both sides, definitely on the audience's side. We saw tears in the crowds.

People who had been there in 1979 when Pope John Paul II came on his first visit as pope, when Poland was still under communism at the time. And these people reminiscing about how grateful they are for the pope having provided the spiritual force to deal with communism and eventually to bring it down.

At the same time, though, during his homily, during mass, he criticized some of the brutal effects of capitalism in the last 13 years. He spoke about what he called "the noisy propaganda of liberalism," liberalism being free markets here, over here, "freedom without truth or responsibility" -- taking a very strong jab at what is believed and felt to be widespread corruption in post-communist Poland. As it tries to move toward joining the European Union by 2004, there are 18 million unemployed -- 18 percent unemployed here. So a very, very difficult situation for Poland as it struggles, and they're looking for spiritual guidance and the offerings of hope from their pontiff who comes to visit their countrymen.

And afterward, very touching exchange between the pope and the people there, who were coming -- asking him who to stay, not to go. And the pope joking with them, saying, look, you're asking me to desert Rome. And, also, just jokingly saying that this is -- that there are -- people want him to desert Rome, and saying that this is entirely in the hands of God as to whether I come back as pope here to Poland. So a bit of an exchange there between both sides, the people saying they love him, they wish he would come back. Earlier, during the sermon, actually, there was a bomb scare in downtown, in the central part of town, where they felt -- that they thought -- the police said that they thought there was a bomb. It turned out to be a car battery, but it certainly emptied the main market square here in Krakow, caused a bit of a scare, but things are back to normal at this point.

So later today, the pope retracing some of his footsteps. Tomorrow, he has another mass before he leaves back for the Vatican. This is a four-day trip where he really is retracing those steps. If he's not saying goodbye, there are many indications that this kind of a revisiting could very well be -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much, Chris Burns, from Krakow.

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