Pope's visit for next year
THE POLISH government has nu objection to :t papal visit to Poland next year, the Polish news agency PAP reported last week.
The report was made after a 'fleeting in Warsaw of the mixed government-episcopal commis sion. which includes representatives of the communist-run government and the Polish bishops.
According to PAP. the commission "expressed its satisfaction that Pope John Paul II has accepted the invitation of the episcopacy to come again to Poland in August of next year.
During a recent visit to Rome, Archbishop Jozef Glemp of Warsaw and Gnietno extended an official invitation from the bishops for the Pope to attend ceremonies marking the sixth centenary of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa.
Pope John Paul indicated in a later speech that he hoped to visit Poland next year. and Archbishop Glemp announced in Warsaw that the Pope had accepted the invitation,
The Vatican has declined to confinn the papal trip until all details of the visit are finalized.
On the day after the PAP report, Archbishop Glemp, primate of Poland, met privately at his residence in Warsaw with Lech Walesa, leader of Poland's independent trade union movement, Solidarity.
The archbishop and the union leader reportedly discussed the government proposal for a "front of national accord," a topic which was also scheduled to be discussed at the plenary session of the Polish bishops' conference which began November 25.
• The Pope said last Sunday that he had sent personal messages to Presidents Reagan and Brezhnev expressing the hope that the Geneva disarmament conference would lead to a reduction of nuclear arms in Europe.
Addressing between 30 and 40.000 people in St Peter's Square. Pope John Paul noted that the talks were due to begin the next day.
"On the eve of this encounter. I have sent a personal message to the two highest authorities of the two countries expressing a keen interest in the outcome of these talks, towards which millions throughout the world are anxiously turning their attention," said the Pope.
"I have also expressed hope and encouragement that due to common efforts of goodwill. this occasion will not pass without reaching results that reinforce hopes for a future no longer threatened by the spectre of nuclear conflict," he said.
On Monday, the Italian Cornmunist newspaper L'Unita reported the message, and mentioned possib 9,00t to the Soviet Union by the Pope. L'Unita said that such a visit had been mentioned last week in Amsterdam by a Soviet diplomat. This. the paper said. was the first such allusion by a Soviet representative.