As the late Pope John Paul II is beatified in the Vatican, many in his home country, Poland, are jubilant. But Poland’s attachment to the late Pope stems from more than just national pride, since many credit him with helping to overthrow the communist state.

In the town of Wadowice in southern Poland, John Paul II is everywhere. His face flutters from flags lining the streets, and he beams down on passers by from statues and photographs. Wadowice is the late Pope’s home town. He was born Karol Wojtyla in 1920, in a three-room flat that now houses a museum filled with his personal affairs – his cradle, his skis and a doily made by his mother.

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“John Paul II is blessed because of his faith — a strong, generous and apostolic faith,” Pope Benedict XVI said May 1 just minutes after formally beatifying his predecessor.

Italian police said that for the Mass more than 1 million people were gathered in and around the Vatican and in front of large video screens in several parts of the city.

Many in the crowd had personal stories about seeing Pope John Paul or even meeting him, and Pope Benedict ended his homily at the Mass sharing his own personal story.

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During public ceremonies, Pope John Paul put people at their ease, often with a sense of humor. When he held hands and danced onstage with young people in Australia in 1986, one of the girls began to cry. The smiling pope hugged her and said simply, “Don’t worry.”

Carl Anderson, the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, was impressed with the way Pope John Paul patiently greeted the sick and disabled at his public events, chatting with them one by one and blessing them. He was not going through the motions; he was interested in them.

“These were small actions that were not necessary and not expected. It was something he was doing that was different, personal and made that person feel very special with the encounter,” Anderson said.

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Strange as it may seem, I’ve been vaguely worried about today’s beatification of a man with whom I was in close conversation for over a decade and to the writing of whose biography I dedicated 15 years of my own life.
My worries don’t have to do with allegations of a “rushed” beatification process – the process has been a thorough one, and the official judgment is the same as the judgment of the people of the Church.
I’m also unconcerned about the fretting of ultra-traditionalists for whom John Paul II was a failure because he didn’t restore the French monarchy, impose the Tridentine Mass on the entire Church, and issue thundering anathemas against theologians and wayward politicians….

No, my worries have to do with our losing touch with the qualities of the man himself….

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On a sunny afternoon this week, St. Peter’s Square was abuzz with life. Crowds lined up at the metal detectors. Tourists snapped photos. A workman was spraying down the travertine steps to the basilica. And inside, red cloth screens cordoned off a side chapel that will soon draw as many visitors as Michelangelo’s Pietà nearby.

Starting Sunday, that chapel is where the entombed remains of Pope John Paul II will be on view for public veneration ”” after Pope Benedict XVI presides over the biggest spectacle since his own installation in 2005: a beatification Mass that will move his adored predecessor a step closer to sainthood.

The beatification is widely seen as a way not just to honor John Paul but to energize the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, like John Paul’s 26-year papacy itself, it has become intensely polarizing….

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Along with nationwide prayers on Sunday the Church has also organised a two-day retreat for drivers where they can reflect upon their attitude when they get behind a wheel.

Aggressive and bad driving make a significant contribution to the high death-rate on Polish roads, one of the worst in the developed world. A survey by the by the OECD-affiliated International Transport Forum for 2009 found there were 12 deaths on Polish roads for every 100,000 inhabitants while the UK clocked up just 3.9 despite having more cars and a greater road network than Poland.

“Many of us behave like pagans when we’re driving,” said Father Marian Midura, the organiser of the prayer day, which has the support of the national police. “Even though we hang rosaries, carry images of saints and have the early Christian sign of the fish on our cars we do not respect other drivers.” Priests will also beseech people to avoid drink driving, another contributing factor to the death rate.

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When Pope Benedict XVI declares Pope John Paul II “blessed” on May 1, bestowing on his predecessor the Catholic Church’s highest honor short of sainthood, millions will watch from St. Peter’s Square, on television and on the Internet. John Paul’s beatification, which was officially announced last week, will be an occasion for recalling his eventful reign, and it will inevitably inspire comparisons with the man who now sits in his place. In many eyes, those comparisons will not prove favorable to Benedict.

The current pope is low-key, as Americans discovered during his 2008 visit. For all his charm, he lacks the gregariousness, physical presence and gift for the dramatic gesture with which the former actor John Paul could win over crowds.

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“Let every listener choose that which interests him. I have nothing against one person liking Mozart or Shostakovich or Leonard Bernstein, but doesn’t like Górecki. That’s fine with me. I, too, like certain things.”

–Henryk Górecki (1933-2010) as quoted by Richard Kauffman in the Christian Century, December 14, 2010, page 13

Poland is still an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation, still conservative and still religious, especially when compared with its European neighbors. But supporters and critics of the Roman Catholic Church all acknowledge that the society is changing. They agree that church representatives in Poland have lost authority and credibility, and that much of the population is moving toward a more secular view of life, one with a greater separation between church and state, and a rejection of church mandates on individual morality.

“We are considered the European museum of Catholicism, but let me tell you we are no longer,” said Szymon Holownia, program director for Religia TV, a relatively new station that aims to convince Poles that faith can and should be relevant in modern life with programs like a cooking show led by a nun. “The relationship between faith and state is changing; it is changing dramatically in Poland,” Mr. Holownia said. “It is really huge.”

“Twenty years of freedom and religion is evaporating,” he said. “This is the crisis of Christianity in Poland.”

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The current economic crisis and the ignorance of some Western scholars are fueling prejudices against Islam, participants said at a conference in Poland Friday.

The daylong conference in the western Polish city of Wroclaw considered the media portrayal of Islam, attitudes toward Muslim immigrants in France and the perception of Muslims in the former Soviet Union.

Imam Ali Abi Issa, of Wroclaw’s mosque, said some Western scholars are fueling Islamophobia by studying Islamic texts without looking at historical or cultural contexts.

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Read it all will not cut it on this one, you need to listen to it all.

The one section that you absolutely must not miss is this one:

One person who was very moved by Gorecki’s third symphony was a 14-year old girl from Sweden ”” a burn victim who wrote a letter to the composer, telling him that his music was the only thing that kept her alive. Gorecki reads from the letter in his interview.

There is an audio link where Gorecki reads the letter through a translator–it made me cry–KSH. (Hat tip: Elizabeth)

It’s a plain wooden cross almost austere in its simplicity.

But it is stirring passions in heavily Roman Catholic Poland that expose bitter divisions which make it seem like two separate nations sharing the same land and language.

The pale wood cross about four meters (13 feet) high was erected in front of the presidential palace by Boy and Girl Scouts days after the April plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others.

It quickly became a spot for mourners to light candles, place flowers and pray.

Now, with a new president installed and the country returning to normal, the question of whether the cross should stay or go has set off wider disputes that underscore the deep divisions between traditional and modern Poles, conservatives and liberals, and even rich and poor.

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Almost every classical pianist loves Chopin. But Polish pianists have a special bond with the music of their compatriot, whether they’re tossing off a jaunty Mazurka or navigating a serious Sonata. To mark the bicentennial of the composer’s birth, NPR Music’s Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz discuss the appeal of Chopin’s music and spin a few great Chopin recordings by Polish pianists from 1917 up to the present.

Caught this on the morning run–simply fantastic. Listen to it all ( a little under 12 minutes).

Mr. [Michal] Bilewicz, the psychologist, agreed. He described two interesting studies he conducted not long ago. In one, he said, different groups of Israeli and Polish teenagers, brought together, were told either to chat only about their lives today or to discuss only the war and Shoah. The first group forged easy bonds. The second talked at cross purposes. “Both sides need to learn to empathize more,” Mr. Bilewicz concluded.

The other study surveyed residents of what used to be the Warsaw Ghetto, where virtually no remnants of the Jewish past remain, aside from street names and the memorial. To the surprise even of the researchers, many residents said the Jewish history of their district was crucial to their own sense of pride and home. The study found that the monuments, museums and other cultural reminders of the past were essential to sustaining the neighborhood’s collective memory.

“History is being rewritten here every day,” as Mr. Bilewicz put it. “How come you in America believe that you can change, but Poles always remain the same?”

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