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POLAND-COMMUNICATION May-25-2006 (600 words) With photo. xxxi
Poles praise pope for addressing them in Polish during papal trip
By Jonathan Luxmoore
Catholic News Service
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Polish Catholics have praised Pope Benedict XVI for addressing them in their native tongue at the start of his four-day visit to Poland.
"The pope studied hard before this pilgrimage -- besides language lessons, he spent a lot of time privately reading and repeating Polish texts," said Father Tadeusz Cieslak, a Polish Vatican Radio commentator, in a May 25 report in Dziennik, a daily newspaper.
The pope made several remarks in Polish during his arrival speech at the Warsaw airport and in an address to Polish clergy at the Cathedral of St. John. Afterward, his main texts were read in Italian.
Dziennik reported that the pope had hoped to "say as much as possible" in Polish, but had trouble "overcoming the phonetic barrier" with his native German.
However, Jan Miodek, a language professor at Warsaw University, said Pope Benedict had made "fantastic progress."
"Benedict XVI is a polyglot, who already knows many languages," Miodek said. "But we must also forgive him if there are certain Polish sounds which he will never quite say properly."
The pope, who accompanied Pope John Paul II on his 1979 homecoming and has made several previous visits to Poland, regularly addresses Rome's Polish pilgrims in their native language.
In a May 25 interview with Dziennik, the Polish head of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, said the pope was aware of the expectations surrounding his pilgrimage and had shown "great reverence" for his predecessor by trying to communicate in Polish.
However, he added that Pope Benedict's inability to converse freely would create "a certain distance" in contacts with large crowds.
"The language barrier will, unfortunately, be difficult to overcome -- a text read by someone else isn't the same as a spontaneous remark," the cardinal told the newspaper. "John Paul II had this spontaneity and often departed from his written texts, sometimes branching into Polish affairs -- we shouldn't expect this on this occasion."
Cardinal Grocholewski said he believed the pope was "too conscious of his mission" to be nervous while addressing Polish crowds -- expected to reach 1 million during the May 28 open-air Mass in Krakow -- and already had extensive experience addressing different audiences.
"Of course, it won't be the same -- the contact will have a different quality," the cardinal said. "Poles should be very pleased that he has spoken Polish during his first visit -- we know how hard it is for a German to say even a few words in a Slavic language."
In a May 25 survey in Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza daily, 85 percent of Poles said they hoped the pope would "say a lot" in Polish during the pilgrimage and make "frequent references to John Paul II."
A Warsaw University student, Ewa Dryjanska, said Catholics would welcome the pope's "gesture in entering into their experiences."
"Polish is a hard language, so this is really appreciated," Dryjanska told Catholic News Service May 25. "It's important for Poles, after losing their Polish-speaking pope, to know he's made this effort."
Poland's main state TV news reported May 24 that Pope Benedict had also received coaching in Polish hand gestures in preparation for his May 25-28 visit to Poland.
In a separate May 24 Gazeta Wyborcza survey, 75 percent of Poles said Pope Benedict had a "good media presence," compared to 96 percent who said the same about Pope John Paul.
Compared to the 98 percent who thought Pope John Paul had a sense of humor, 54 percent believed the new pontiff had a sense of humor.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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