Extraordinary meeting

“Dear brothers and sisters – said the Pope on 24 May, on the eve of his departure for Poland -, I invite you to accompany me with your prayers in this apostolic journey which I am about to make with great hope and which I entrust to the Blessed Virgin, so deeply venerated in Poland. May She guide my steps so that I may confirm in the faith our beloved Polish Catholic community and encourage it to tackle the challenges of the present time with incisive evangelising action!” EXPECTATIONS OF THE YOUNG. “Poland is experiencing this visit with filial enthusiasm and devotion. We are grateful to Benedict XVI for recalling his predecessor on every occasion; thanks to him the memory of John Paul II remains ever alive. But we are also grateful to the Pope for the simplicity and the clarity of his words, and for his courageous struggle against secularisation”, declared the Archbishop of Warsaw-Prague, SLAWOJ LESZEK GLÓD?, who described to SirEurope the state of mind of the Polish people while awaiting the arrival of Benedict XVI in their country. The appeal made to the Polish bishops by the Pope during their visit ad limina to Rome last November is still fresh in their minds, said Monsignor Glód?: “Defend your national and Catholic identity!”. “It’s a clear and vigorous imperative; a strong encouragement – commented the archbishop -. We expect Benedict XVI to recall it and give it added significance during his visit to Poland”. What are the most significant events in the Pope’s journey? According to Msgr. Glód? “the visit to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau on 28 May will be moving”. The most eagerly awaited event is the meeting with Polish youth: “My diocese has asked for 130,000 tickets for the meeting that Benedict XVI will have with youth at Krakow on 27 May; I know that the total requests for tickets have already exceeded 300,000”. “ ALMOST THREE MILLION Poles want to meet the Pope during his visit: whether during the liturgical celebrations, in the city squares (over 100,000 in Pilduski Square, in Warsaw, to participate in the mass on Friday 26 May; schools and offices will remain closed throughout the country to mark the occasion), or by waving to him as he travels through the streets. 80% of the population will follow his visit through the media”, reports Father ANDRZEJ MAJEWSKI , head of Catholic programmes on Polish state TV, in a briefing to SIR . They are figures – he continues – that “testify to the population’s enormous affection for the Pope”. “Following the election of Benedict XVI we wondered whether the Poles would have for the non-Polish Pope, and what’s more a German, the same feelings they had for John Paul II. But Josef Ratzinger has conquered their hearts by following in the footsteps of the teaching of his predecessor and by enabling people to perceive his sincere friendship with and veneration for Karol Wojtyla, as also by deciding to make his first apostolic journey outside Italy to Poland (last year’s journey to Cologne was planned in his time by John Paul II)”. VERY GREAT VALUE. The apostolic journey of Benedict XVI, according to the President of the Polish Republic LECH KACZYNSKI, “has greater value than a state visit, even at the highest level, for Polish-German reconciliation”. “We feel him to be a great protector of Poland and a great protagonist in our lives”, said MAREK JUREK, President of the Chamber, while according to the Prime Minister KAZIMIERZ MARCINKIEWICZ , “there are 10 million educated and cultivated European youth in Poland who will meet the Pope: the generation of John Paul II”.