Poland to celebrate huge mass in honour of pope

An estimated 100,000 mourners are lining up to file past the body of Pope John Paul II at his lying-in-state in St Peter's Basilica yesterday in the Vatican City. PHOTO: AFP

Cardinal Jozef Glemp returned to Warsaw on Monday evening from Argentina to celebrate the mass, the Polish news agency PAP said.

The service will be held at the capital's central Pilsudski Square, where John Paul II celebrated a historic mass on his first visit to his native land as pope in 1979, when the country was still in the grip of communism.

At that mass, the pope urged his compatriots to "have no fear" and uttered a phrase that was to be interpreted by many Poles as an exhortation to stand up to communism.

"May the spirit come and renew the face of this land," said John Paul II.

Since then, Poland has shed communism and its centrally planned economy, and joined the European Union and NATO. Its economy is one of the healthiest in Europe, completing the renewal some say was prophesied by the pope.

The 1979 phrase is to be inscribed on a memorial to John Paul II which Warsaw city council has decided should be erected in Pilsudski Square.

National railway company PKP at midnight began selling half-price tickets to Warsaw for anyone wishing to attend Tuesday's mass.

Shops in the capital, which are usually open for more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week, have posted notices to say they would be shutting their doors at 4:30 pm (1430 GMT) to allow staff to attend the service, which was due to start at 5:00 pm.

Warsaw's biggest taxi company, MPT, has offered to transport handicapped and elderly people to the mass for free.

Workers at Telekommunikacja Polska called off a strike over job cuts scheduled for Tuesday, and traders and officials at Warsaw's bourse, the biggest in the former communist bloc and one of the most lively in Europe, would mark a moment of silence in honour of the pope.

Meanwhile, pilgrims were beginning to leave the four corners of Poland for Rome, to attend the pope's funeral on Friday.

Some 200 people left Wadowice, the town where the pope was born Karol Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, "guided by our hearts", on four buses bound for Rome.

"I feel the need to be near the pope," said retired electrician Stanislaw Rajski.

"I went to Rome four times to meet the pope and I can't imagine not being with him now," he said.