Weary Pope heads for loyal Malta on last leg of pilgrimage

Pope John Paul II was today heading for Malta - a bastion of his own church - to close a journey that challenged the stamina of the frail pontiff amid momentous gestures for religious reconciliation with others.

But the pilgrimage which followed the steps of the Apostle Paul through Greece and Syria also displayed the 80-year-old pope’s determination to continue the history-shaping acts that have defined his papacy.

The two-day stop in Malta should offer John Paul a chance to catch his breath after two highly charged backdrops - festering Middle East conflicts and the 1,000-year estrangement between the Vatican and the Eastern Orthodox churches.

The Pope should encounter only ecstatic crowds on returning after 11 years to Malta, where nearly 98% of the 392,000 people are Roman Catholic.

The Pope will also fulfil a dream for many on the Mediterranean island nation: beatification of a beloved local priest, George Preca, who founded a religious society that reached out to the common workers and their families. Beatification is the last formal step before possible sainthood.

Preca, who died in 1962, overcame initial obstacles from the Roman Catholic leadership in Malta to establish the Society of Christian Doctrine, a group of laymen and women who pledge themselves to celibacy, missionary work and a routine of private prayer. The society now has about 1,100 active members and operates schools in Malta and six other countries, including Australia and Peru.

The remains of Preca have been moved to a raised tomb at the society’s main church, and the Pope plans to view an effigy of the body in a glass enclosure.

Also scheduled for beatification by John Paul are two 19th century religious figures - Maria Adeodata Pisani, a cloistered nun, and Nazju Falzon, who founded a Christian association that attracted many British military members in the former colony.

The Pope’s six-day itinerary was built around the journeys of the Paul, who the Bible says spent three months preaching in Malta after being shipwrecked in 60 AD while being taken to Rome for trial.

But John Paul took advantage of the pilgrimage stops to offer historic appeals for religious co-operation.

In Greece, he astonished his hosts with an apology for centuries of Roman Catholic wrongs against Orthodox Christians. The Pope urged for serious dialogue on bridging nearly 1,000 years of mistrust and hostility since the two branches of Christianity split.

In Syria, he became the first Roman Catholic leader to step inside a mosque and spoke the common bonds between Islam and Christianity. He also used his visit to Quneitra a Golan city once occupied by Israelis to offer a prayer for peace and forgiveness in the region.

The Pope’s planned messages in Malta are not expected to touch on such deep complexities. But some clergymen in Malta hope, for a moment, to see beyond the nation’s intense political rivalries, including a divide over whether Malta should press ahead for membership in the European Union.

‘‘We risk seeing the visit from a purely superficial lens,’’ said Bishop Nikol Cauchi of the island of Gozo. ‘‘Let’s be united. Let’s forget our political differences. This is like a family. We are being reunited through the Pope.’’

John Paul is scheduled to return to Rome late Wednesday.