Christ, not cash

Pope Benedict, speaking from the spot in Poland where his predecessor Pope John Paul II inspired his countrymen to defy communism 27 years ago, urged Poles not to let modern prosperity erode their faith.

The 79-year-old German Pope celebrated an open air mass for more than 300,000 people - less than the one million expected - in a rainy Plac Piłsudskiego last Friday. As the crowd huddled under umbrellas, Benedict recalled that it was there that Pope John Paul II read a fiery speech that would go down in Polish history as a spark that ushered in a bloodless revolution.

At his 1979 mass, the late Polish Pontiff quoted a prayer  asking the Holy Spirit "to renew the face of the earth …" and then improvised, adding "the face of this land."

Poles saw it as a battle cry to fight oppression, and a year later the Solidarity trade union was born, which was the first step towards the defeat of communism in 1989.

Speaking from the base of a massive aluminum cross 25 metres high, in Polish and Italian, he said: "How can we not thank God today for all that was accomplished in your native land and in the whole world during the Pontificate of John Paul II? Before our eyes, changes occurred in entire political, economic and social systems. People in various countries regained their freedom and their sense of dignity.

"I ask you now, cultivate this rich heritage of faith transmitted to you by earlier generations … stand firm in your faith, hand it down to your children, bear witness to the grace which you have experienced so abundantly through the Holy Spirit in the course of your history," he said in his homily. (Reuters)