John Paul II, freedom fighter

KRAKOW, Poland -- A low, dull sound has rolled over this somber city every morning this week. From the heights of Krakow's iconic Wawel Castle, the Zygmunt Bell rings. At almost 500 years old and weighing nearly 11 metric tons, it tolls only during the most significant events in Polish history.\nSuch a time came last Saturday when Poland lost one of its greatest sons. In response to the death of Karl Wojtyla, known to the world as Pope John Paul II, Polish and Vatican flags fly in solidarity all around the city, always with black mourning sashes attached. Krakowians themselves wear white ribbons in solidarity or buttons that display the seal of their city, crossed by a black sash.\nPolish television reflects the mood as it scrolls through the sites of the pope's origins in Poland: Krakow, where he worked as an archbishop; Czestochowa, Poland's primary pilgrimage destination; and Wadowice, where he was born and grew up. On one channel, the words "Jan Pawel II nie zyje" -- John Paul II is dead -- scroll continually across the bottom of the screen in the same numbness many of his mourners feel.\n"... We had the Pope. He was Poland," said Maria Stanowska, a Polish woman living in Berlin, in an April 4 Irish Times article.\nTo understand the incredible devotion this nation feels toward its former countryman, one must look back to the time of the pope's election in 1978. Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe were suffering under communist dictatorships, while the Western world had turned its back on them with its policy of détente. The Poles had tried to liberate themselves several times throughout the 1970s, but each attempt failed when sectors of the population did not join each other in the struggle for freedom.\nIt took the stature, wisdom and strength of Pope John Paul to unite all the Polish factions against communism and to bring world attention to the plight of Eastern Europe. When he made his first visit as pope to Poland in 1979, he held open-air masses across the country that attracted millions. During the events, he said a religious person had to oppose the communist regime because of its inherently immoral character. \nA year after his visit, the Polish people united under the banner of the Solidarno, or Solidarity, labor movement. After the imposition of martial law in Poland, the pope visited again, acting as a ray of hope for those who faced the dark tunnel of attempted totalitarianism. Democratic reformers then won elections in a landslide in 1989, causing the fall of communism in Poland. Inspired by the Polish example, dissidents in much of the rest of Eastern Europe soon brought down their own communist regimes.\n"Everything that has happened in Eastern Europe in recent years would have been impossible without the pope's efforts," said former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev just a few years ago, according to an April 4 article in the Chicago Tribune.\nModern Poland owes its existence to John Paul II. With his death, a guiding father figure fades away along with an integral element of Polish collective consciousness.\nPersonally, the pope's passing has touched me deeply as a Catholic, a Polish-American and a journalist. As I stood among vigil-keepers and mourners, I felt immensely humbled to be outside the building where such a great man once taught and lived. While I disagreed with some of his more conservative positions, his personal moral example, great diplomatic charm and other teachings have inspired me to seek a greater good in my own life.\nPoland will recover from its gloom, as it has so often throughout its tragic history. But the world might never again be blessed with a freedom fighter like Karl Wojtyla.