Benedict's Polish Pilgrimage

Allen Pizzey On Unavoidable Comparisons Between Pontiffs

(CBS)  This report was written by CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey.

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So far Poland is not being overly kind to Pope Benedict XVI. The welcome is warm enough, as it would be in a country described as the most Catholic in Europe, but it is nothing like the ecstasy that greeted every move and word of the late John Paul II.

It even rained on his first outdoor Mass in Pilsudski Square, where John Paul II made a famous speech in 1979 that is credited with inspiring the Solidarity movement which eventually overthrew communist rule here and began the domino effect that ended communism throughout Eastern Europe.

Benedict's speech concentrated on the theme summed up by the motto of this his first elective trip as Pontiff: "Stand Firm in Your Faith."

Official estimates put the crowd at around 300,000. John Paul II allegedly got a million.

Comparisons to John Paul II dog Benedict’s every footstep, which is in a way unfair, because Benedict is not trying to emulate the man he served in the Vatican for 24 years.

He even offered what seemed like a mild repudiation of the last Pope's style. John Paul II had a penchant for calling on Catholics to apologize for errors and sins committed by the church in the past. Benedict warned a meeting of clergy against what he termed "the arrogant claim of setting ourselves up to judge earlier generations who lived in different times and in different circumstances."

Still, it is to pay homage to his predecessor that Benedict has come. He begins every speech and greeting in what is said to be good Polish, and will stop at every place near and dear to John Paul II's spiritual life including the Shrine of the Black Madonna - which dates back to between the 6th and 9th centuries and was visited by the late pope nine times - and Krakow, where as Karol Woytjla, he served as a priest.

Perhaps aware that he cannot begin to hold the crowds he way the "other guy" did, Benedict has also adopted a much brisker style of getting through the speeches. He reads the first few lines in Italian, which are then translated into Polish, and then the translator takes over and finishes the paragraph while Benedict watches.

It's a pleasant change for the traveling press who cover many of the events on a rotating pool basis. The pool has to show up early and wait until the event is over, then rush back to brief colleagues and file if there is anything newsworthy.

This trip almost everyone actually got to go to supper on the first night, a rarity on such voyages.

But in an effort to maintain a decently worshipful atmosphere for the pope, the Polish authorities banned the sale of alcohol, including wine and Poland's rightly famous beer, even with meals. It may be their way of signifying respect, but it is also a telling symbol of how serious a drinking problem this society has.

The bars were almost deserted last night, save for a few souls who sat gazing disconsolately at beer taps while they nursed a mineral water with a slice of lemon.

What that all had to do with the attendance at Mass is unknown.