World

Pope: Remember The Poor

June 5, 1999 / 3:11 PM EDT / AP

Pope John Paul II Tuesday urged more than 200,000 faithful in an impoverished rural region of his native Poland to remember the poor while striving for economic development.

At a Mass also attended by Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, the Polish-born pontiff took note of government and private efforts to help those struggling in the transformation to a free-market economy a decade after communism.

But he warned against rushing for economic growth while forgetting to care properly for the people.

Â"Development and economic progress must never be at the expense of men and women, hindering the meeting of their fundamental needs,Â" John Paul said. Â"The human person must be the subject of development, that is it's most important point of reference.Â"

The message has particular force in rural Poland, where farmers have been hit hard by economic reforms in the transition from communism to free market principles. Unemployment in the Elk region is 20 percent, and sometimes violent protests by farmers have forced the government to intervene by buying Polish goods.

Adamkus was one of several thousand Roman Catholics from neighboring Lithuania and other former Soviet republics who came to Poland for the outdoor Mass. People filled the tree-lined meadow in northeast Poland as the 79-year-old pope spoke from an altar shaped like a boat, separated from the faithful by a small stream.

Â"Let us not harden our hearts when we hear the cry of the poor. Let us strive to listen to this cry,Â" John Paul said in Polish. Â"Let us strive to act and to live in such a way that in our country no one will be without a roof over their head or bread on their table.Â"

Irena Volnedic, an office clerk from Miskuny in Lithuania, said the economic and social changes in her country also have changed people.

Â"People are so selfish these days and they don't help each other,Â" she said. Â"When you have a job you are happy, when you don't have it, it is more difficult to live.Â"

The pope shifted languages easily on the fourth day of his 13-day pilgrimage to his homeland. He delivered some of his homily in Lithuanian and later greeted groups from Russia and Belarus in their native tongues. When the crowd began chanting Â"Stay with us,Â" the pope paused and said in Polish, Â"I'm not leaving yet,Â" drawing laughter and cheers.

On Monday, John Paul issued a plea for world peace and spoke of innocent blood being shed in Kosovo.

His prayer in the northern city of Torun was the first time the pontiff mentioned Kosovo since beginning the longest official pilgrimage yet to a single country.

Â"How much innocent blood has been shed in the 20th century, in Europe and throughout the world, because certain political and social systems forsook the principles of Christ that guarantee a just peace?Â" John Paul asked at a beatification ceremony for Wincenty Frelichowski, priest who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp.

Â"How much innocent blood is being shed under our very eyes. The tragic events in Kosovo have shown and are showing this in a painful way,Â" he added. Â"Let the cry for peace from this place reach everyone around the world.Â"