Hometown crowd prays for 'Lolek the goalie'

Lolek receives his First Communion in Krakow in this undated picture. Picture / Reuters

For more than one billion Catholics he was God's representative on Earth, an unworldly hard-to-fathom figure whose eminent role seemed to transcend his nationality, personality and past.

But for the people of Wadowice, a small town in southern Poland where he was born almost 85 years ago, the late John Paul II was better known as Lolek.

It is perhaps here, 50km south of Krakow, where he would later become Archbishop, that a sense of who Karol Wojtyla was and what made him tick still lingers.
Yesterday in bright spring sunshine Wadowice remembered a boy known affectionately to his friends as "Lolek the goalie" because of his obsessive love of football. The pitch where he used to keep goal for the local team, apparently rather poorly, stood empty.

There was no wailing and few tears. Instead intense grieving prevailed as the modest house where he was born and the onion-domed church where he used to pray up to three times a day became a focus for people's sorrow.

Pictures of Lolek stared down at mourners from a giant hoarding, reminding them he, too, had lived his life like everyone else before giving himself over wholly to the church.

A podgy baby swathed in white in his mother's arms, a crop-haired serious-looking boy, a tousle-haired, happy-looking teenager, a clean-cut priest in a dog collar and finally a white-robed Pope holding forth in front of an invisible crowd.

It was here - at least for the first 18 years of his life - that the man who would become one of the papacy's longest serving Popes was forged.

Here that he developed a passion for amateur dramatics and poetry, football, skiing, hiking and, above all, for the church and for God.

Here that he shone at school, apparently avoided any entanglements with the opposite sex, studied Polish history and here that he grieved when his mother and brother died, leaving him to struggle along with his religious, militaristic father.

Behind a bust of John Paul on the church wall was a reminder of Lolek's momentous path to Rome, picking out three significant events in his life; his birth in Wadowice in 1920, his appointment as Bishop of Krakow in 1958 and his election to the papacy in 1978. A plaque attached to the house where he was born - 7 Church St - became one of many shrines.

Candles burned brightly and black ribbons curled their way around the white and yellow flags - "the Pope's flag". From inside the church, packed with mourners, the sound of stoic singing drifted across the square.

Sajdak Leon, a pensioner who had made a special visit to Wadewice, said local people had always admired the Pope's low-key style.

"There is so much wisdom we can learn from him," he said. "He achieved so much, including the collapse of the Berlin Wall. He did things calmly and modestly yet efficiently. We are all so proud that he was Polish."

At Krakow's ultra-modern Lagiewniki Basilica, 50km to the north, the scene was very different and of Wojtyla, the local boy made good, there was little sign.

As thousands of pilgrims set up shop for the day and prepared to listen to a special Mass, Lolek was overshadowed by the towering religious figure he was later to become.

But there was a stark reminder of Lolek the man.

It was here in the early part of World War II that Lolek toiled in a quarry shovelling limestone and hence avoiding a potentially fatal trip to Nazi Germany.

Back in Wadewice there seemed to be a recognition - among some at least - that Poland had lost one of its most famous ambassadors but that life would go on.

- INDEPENDENT