Pope fuels sainthood hopes at John Paul's birthplace

WADOWICE, POLAND: Pope Benedict XVI bolstered Polish hopes of early sainthood for John Paul II as he visited the birthplace of his predecessor on Saturday, strengthening a growing bond with people in this Roman Catholic country.   

He told a crowd of 25,000 faithful that he was "filled with emotion" after treading in the early footsteps of John Paul in his native Wadowice.   

As the pilgrims turned the town's central Rynek square into a sea of yellow and white Vatican flags, he told them he could not have left Wadowice out of his four-day visit to Poland.   

"I wished to stop precisely here, in the place where the faith began and matured, to pray together with all of you that he may soon be elevated to the glory of the altars," he said, raising delighted cheers from the crowd.   

It was the second time in two days that Pope Benedict had overtly referred to sainthood for John Paul, who was born Karol Wojtyla here on May 18, 1920.   

He told young people who gathered outside the Krakow archbishop's residence the night before that their prayers were bringing his predecessor ever closer to sainthood.   

The Polish pope died on April 2 last year, sparking calls -- most strident in his homeland -- for him to be made a saint immediately.   

On the eve of his reconciliation visit Sunday to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the German pope quoted a compatriot, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to illustrate his reasoning: "He who wishes to understand a poet, should visit his native land."   

The 79-year-old Benedict began his four-day trip on Thursday to boost the Church's fight against growing secularism and help erase deep-seated distrust between Poland and Germany, which occupied the country during World War II.   

He began the day Saturday with a private mass in the chapel of the Krakow archbishop's residence accompanied by Krakow Archbishop Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former pope's private secretary.   

Dziwisz later accompanied him to Wadowice, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Krakow. Here, Benedict knelt to pray in the Church of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, where John Paul II was baptised and later served as an altar boy.   

Then he walked the 50 metres (150 feet) to Wojtyla's old family home at 7 Koscielna Street, in a first floor apartment overlooking the basilica.   

The Pope paused to study photographs of the Wojtyla family, including the future pope's birth certificate, on public display in what has been a museum since 1984.   

Wadowice was the first stop on the penultimate day of Benedict's pilgrimage to Poland. He was scheduled later in the day to take in visits to two Roman Catholic shrines venerated by his predecessor.   

Benedict was later to ride in a motorcade to Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, where as a child John Paul II used to pray with his father.   

Later, he will visit the shrine of the Divine Mercy in nearby Lagiewniki, stamping his seal of approval on a Catholic cult that once incurred the wrath of the Church but strongly influenced John Paul, who revived it.   

Benedict is to pray in a chapel at the sanctuary, which contains the relics of Saint Faustina and a reputedly miraculous painting of Jesus Christ.   

The mystic visions of Sister Faustina Kowalska inspired an international cult that thrived after her death in 1938, though only after overcoming the suspicions of Church authorities.   

After an afternoon visit to Wawel Cathedral, of which his predecessor was once archbishop, for a period of private prayer, the pontiff is scheduled to address young people in a field in Blonia, outside Krakow.