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Catholic World News News Feature

Papal audience topics: Paul VI, visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina June 25, 2003

During his regular public audience on Wednesday, June 25, Pope John Paul II touched on two main themes: the papacy of Paul VI, and his recent trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Following his usual custom, the Holy Father interrupted his series of catechetical talks-- currently he is speaking on the Psalms-- to comment on his most recent foreign trip. But he also took note of the fact that Pope Paul VI was elected 40 years ago. (Paul VI actually assumed the papacy on June 30, 1963.) Pope John Paul II said that he thought of Paul VI as a "father" and a "teacher," recalling how his predecessor had begun the difficult process of carrying out the reforms called for by the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Paul VI, the current Pontiff continued, "wished for the ecclesial community to open itself to the world and its questions, without accepting the spirit of the world. With prudent wisdom, he resisted the temptation to adapt the Church to the modern mentality." And he acknowledged the Paul VI therefore faced "misunderstandings and sometimes hostility."

Turning to the topic of his Sunday visit to Banja Luka, in a region where Croatian Catholics suffered heavily during the warfare of the 1990s, the Pope remarked that it was "a brief visit, but an intense one, charged with hope for that land, which has been so sorely tested by recent conflicts." The Pope said that he had seen in Bosnia-Herzegovina "the will to get beyond the sad experiences of the past, to built a society worthy of man and acceptable to God, based on truth and mutual pardon."