Inter Press Service

PLODIV - The ailing Pope John Paul II concluded a physically gruelling but spiritually invigorating three-day visit to orthodox Christian Bulgaria with a mass for the country's Catholic minority in Plodiv Sunday. The mass was attended by about 20,000 worshippers.

The Pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, looked exhausted. His hand shook and his voice was slurred as he beatified three Bulgarian priests who were executed in 1952 by the Communist regime in a purge of the Bulgarian Catholic Church.

But he appeared to draw strength from the enthusiasm of the welcome he received from crowds of both Catholic and Orthodox well-wishers.

Worshippers in Plodiv, Bulgaria's second largest city after the capital Sofia, and located not far from the borders of Greece and Turkey, said that the Pope's criticism of communism during the 1980s had given them strength.

Vlado Ivanov, a Plodiv resident who had queued since six in the morning to attend mass said that the Pope had "fought against the red plague" together with Bulgarian martyrs. "But this has ended happily for us," he added. "I have waited to see the Pope all my life and now he is here in Plodiv."

The visit sought to unite the two great themes of John Paul II's Papacy: his opposition to communism, and his ambition to break down the barriers between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.

The Pope also absolved Bulgaria of any blame for the assassination attempt against him in 1981. He told President Georgi Parvanov that he had "never believed in the so-called Bulgarian connection because of my great esteem and respect for the Bulgarian people."

Foreign Minister Solomon Passy said the statement was the country's "largest diplomatic success since World War II."

The Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who nearly killed the Pope when he fired on him in St Peter's Square in Rome, told an Italian court in 1982 that he had been given his false passport and gun while he stayed 50 days in one of Sofia's largest hotels. The connection was never proved.

Charges against the only Bulgarian to be arrested on suspicion of abetting the attempt were dismissed in an Italian court for lack of evidence.

Evgenia Patasheva, a worshipper at the Catholic Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary in Sofia, who was in Rome at the time of the shooting, said: "I never believed for a moment that the Bulgarian nation had anything to do with it. It was the work of evil."

John Dimi Panitsa, founder of the Free and Democratic Bulgaria Foundation and former managing editor of Reader's Digest, which published one of the biggest investigations into the attempt, said: "I am thrilled that this has happened. My only regret is that it has taken the Vatican 21 years to say it."

But while the government and Bulgarian people greeted the Pope enthusiastically, the strongly pro-Russia Bulgarian Orthodox Church gave him a cool reception.

Patriarch Maxim and the Holy Synod agreed to join Thursday's welcoming ceremony on St Alexander Nevsky Square only a few hours before the Pope arrived. The Patriarch refused to enter the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral with the Catholic leader and ruled out the Pope's attending the religious celebration for the feast of Saints Kiril and Metodius in the cathedral.

During a face to face meeting with the Patriarch, the Pope's plea that the Catholic and Orthodox churches should "live united in the same mind and the same judgement" was rebuffed. Maxim said unity was possible only if those who had strayed from the path of the church return to the orthodox faith. The Vatican had hoped that the visit could open the way for the Pope to visit Russia, advancing his ambition for church unity.

The weak physical condition of the 82-year old Pontiff has prompted the Vatican to cut down plans for future foreign trips. His illness means that the Pope can walk only with difficulty. His speeches are read for him by another priest.
But the Pope is next due to visit Toronto, Canada, for celebrations of World Day of Youth from July 23 to 28.