John Paul Is Back on the Road

By John Kohan

The Pope brings an old message to black Africa's new churches

It seemed--almost--as if nothing had ever happened. There, in his familiar role as pilgrim to the faithful, was Pope John Paul II. The car moving slowly, the crowd pressing in, the hands stretching to touch--it was the scene that had marked, more than any other, the joy of his papacy. But that same scene now also calls up memories of the assassination attempt nine months ago. Last week the Pope was trying to complete the healing of those wounds by turning again to minister to his worldwide flock.

For his first trip outside Italy since the shooting, the Pope chose to make an 8,600-mile trek through four countries of West Africa. In response, Africans turned out by the tens, and hundreds of thousands. Normal activity in Nigeria's capital of Lagos all but stopped, as streets filled with crowds of well-wishers bearing pennants and portraits of the Pope. Fully half the population of Bata, capital of tiny Equatorial Guinea, came out to greet him and threw palm branches to blanket his path. In neighboring Gabon, a special residence for the Pontiff was built in two weeks. Even the Marxist state of Benin fell under the spell, as posters with Bible quotations went up next to Communist slogans.

But for all the similarities to earlier triumphant trips to Mexico and Poland, there were inescapable differences. The Pontiff looked older and drawn, with an occasional hint of feebleness. And as the cordons of security police mingling with crowds made all too plain, it was impossible to forget the gunfire in St. Peter's Square. Indeed, soon after the trip started, West German police picked up Turkish Terrorist Omer Ay, who is suspected of having been an accomplice in the assassination attempt. There was reason for concern near at hand. Nigeria's official news agency reported the arrest of four people for the possession of firearms at two separate stops on the papal tour.

As the Pope moved through the crowds in the steaming tropical heat, there were also echoes of another painful concern that some Vatican insiders feared was becoming an overriding papal preoccupation: the crisis in his native Poland. When a group of Poles working in Nigeria caught his attention in the northern city of Kaduna, John Paul suddenly ordered his driver to stop and leaned over to kiss a homemade Polish flag offered by a young boy. While the crowd cheered, he made approving gestures toward a large banner containing the word SOLIDARITY.

Despite such reminders, John Paul had more pressing pastoral matters to occupy him on the whirlwind tour. The Pope had already visited six Central and West African nations in May 1980. So this second African journey dramatized his special interest in a continent where Roman Catholic missionary activity has led to faster growth for the church than anywhere else on the globe.

But there is competition from Africa's second great monotheistic faith, Islam, which is also increasing rapidly.

There are other problems, and they are evident in the four nations chosen for the Pope's second trip. Two, N geria and Gabon, suffer from the rapid urbanization and social disruption that have followed oil-fueled economic booms. In Benin and Equatorial Guinea, Catholic churches are trying to gain back ground lost during years of dictatorial rule.

Beginning with a five-day stop in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, John Paul sounded themes that he has emphasized on previous pilgrimages. He restated his ban on priests' entering politics, and to show concern about the continuing shortage of clergy in black Africa, he ordained 92 priests. The Pope assured Nigerian bishops that the church had not come "to bring the cultures of another Ibadan but then instructed them not to weaken disciplines such as priestly celibacy to make Catholicism more African. Speaking in the heavily Christian east, he confronted a touchy marital issue. Catholics, he urged, should forswear the traditional practice of polygamy, as well as "modern enemies of the family"--divorce, contraception and abortion. Such tough pronouncements on culturally sensitive issues stirred some anger in predominantly Muslim Nigeria. Said a trader in Kaduna: "How can the Pope tell me how many wives I can have? Has he got one?" A more important disappointment to many Nigerians was the Pope's failure to make a strong denunciation of apartheid in South Africa.

However mixed his welcome in Nigeria, John Paul got a rousing reception in neighboring Benin (formerly Dahomey). If he needed any reminder of the problems facing the church in this tiny, impoverished nation, a banner on the way from the airport said it all: FROM ANIMISM TO MARXISM. Benin is the centuries-old birthplace of voodoo, and for a decade it has been ruled by a Marxist government that persecuted the church until recently. Last week President Mathieu Kerekou grandly welcomed the Pontiff, even diplomatically crossing himself during a Mass. But Kerekou closed his official greetings with a bit of paradoxical sloganeering: "Long live the Pope. Ready the revolution; the struggle continues." John Paul told local bishops that he understood their difficult situation "from personal experience," a reference to his years under Polish Communist rule, but he also welcomed the new "springtime opening for the church."

In Gabon, the Pope encountered a nation where 65% claim to be Catholic but only 18% attend Mass regularly. The figures reflect the church's losing struggle to impose a strict notion of marriage on a society that has traditionally been sexually permissive. Now the unbridled consumerism that has come with petrodollars is also diverting many of the faithful from the church. At a Mass in Libreville, the seaside capital, John Paul warned of the "sad paradise of production and consumption."

No such paradise awaited the Pope in nearby Equatorial Guinea, where an eleven-year reign of terror led by "Devil God" Francisco Macias Nguema had brought the country to economic ruin and threatened to wipe out the church. But despite purges, the country remained heavily Catholic, and since a military coup in 1979 restored a measure of civil liberty, the nation--and the church--has begun to revive. The Pope praised the new leadership for creating a climate where people could "realize their status as men and as children of God." i During his hectic week, John Paul, 61, seemed determined to prove he was as fit as ever. But he occasionally faltered and once needed help getting up after kissing the ground on his arrival in Gabon. Often there was a sense that the powerful warmth of old had been subtly dimmed. Fewer hands were pressed, fewer babies kissed. There were no dramatic gestures, nor did the Pope's messages echo with a tolling sense of urgency.

Yet his mere presence clearly still has an awesomely powerful effect. Said a Nigerian journalist: "There are some people here who actually believed that the Pope lived in heaven, only coming down to a place called Rome during the day and returning to heaven at night. Imagine how they feel when they can actually see him in flesh and blood."

With the Pontiff back in the Vatican after a trip that made him the most traveled Pope in history, his advisers were aware that he had occasionally sounded a discordant cultural note.'But by his presence, he had shown black Africans that they were part of the universal church. In a further sign of his concern, the Pope is now considering the appointment of Monsignor Emery Kabongo, a Vatican diplomat from Zaire, as a papal secretary.

Moreover, as he considers other pilgrimages this year--to Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and, in May, to Great Britain for an ecumenically historic meeting--his aides believe that his African odyssey has rekindled the Pope's broader vision. However much he may grieve for Poland, he must still be pastor to the entire world. --By John Kohan. Reported by Jack E. White/Lagos and Wilton Wynn with the Pope

With reporting by Jack E. White, Wilton Wynn

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