Beatification of Pope John Paul to attract 50,000 Poles

TRAVELLING on a fleet of planes, trains and cars, more than 50,000 Poles are expected to flock to the Vatican for the beatification of “their” saint-to-be, Polish-born Pope John Paul II.

The funeral of Karol Wojtyla in April 2005 drew half a million Poles.

While his fast-track beatification this Sunday, May 1 — a key step towards canonisation as a saint — is a cause for joy among his countrymen, it nonetheless isn’t generating the same kind of mass pilgrimage to Rome this time around.

“I think there will be between 50,000 and 60,000 Poles in Rome for the beatification ceremonies,” Marcin Szklarski, a Polish tour operator specialising in religious pilgrimages, told AFP.

“We were ready to book trips for around 5,000 people in about 100 buses and two planes. Now we have about 3,000 clients so we’ve reduced the number of buses and kept just one plane,” he said.

Szklarski said alarmist Polish media reports, which warned of crushing crowds and sky-high prices for accommodation during the beatification, spooked many faithful Poles enough to make them stay home.

“It was partially justified as hotel owners in Rome did indeed hike their prices and therefore succeeded in discouraging many people,” he said.

With tour operators offering package deals for the trip at around €250, prices have remained affordable for average Poles.

Cautious consumer spending in light of the economic crisis is not the main cause behind the lower number of pilgrims, according to Janusz Czapinski, a Warsaw University professor of social psychology.

“Today Poles are much more wealthy than they were when Pope John Paul II died. The global crisis didn’t really affect Poland, we nearly didn’t notice it,” he said.

“The cultural paradigm in Poland is focused on paying last respects to the deceased, but there is really no tradition of the same kind concerning a beatification or canonisation ceremonies,” he explained.

He also said that the fewer-than-expected number of Poles attending the Rome ceremonies “can also not be explained by a decline in the authority enjoyed by John Paul II.”

“His authority remains intact. John Paul II remains a point of reference for everyone in Poland,” Czapinski said.

Poland’s liberal President Bronislaw Komorowski has invited to the ceremony his two democratic predecessors: Communist-turned-social democrat Aleksander Kwasniewski and Solidarity legend Lech Walesa.

Walesa became Poland’s first democratically elected president in 1991 after negotiating a peaceful end to Communism in 1989.

Several thousand trade unionists will also travel to the Vatican.

“The Pope stopped us from being afraid of the regime,” Ewa Zydorek, a Solidarity official, told AFP.