Pope Warns Against Secularism

Pope John Paul II, struggling to boost the Roman Catholic Church’s declining authority in his native Poland, warned his compatriots Sunday that they cannot build a free post-Communist order “without Christ or against Christ.”

“Attempts are being made to convince man and whole societies that God is an obstacle on the path to full freedom, that the church is the enemy of freedom, that she does not understand freedom, that she is afraid of it,” the pope told 200,000 at an outdoor Mass here.

“This is an unprecedented falsification!” he said, raising his voice to a shout and drawing applause from the rain-soaked crowd. “Especially in this country, on this land … where the church has proven many times to be a guardian of freedom.”