Pope Urges European Leaders to Seek Unity

In an extraordinary gathering, Pope John Paul II brought seven European presidents together, telling them during an open-air Mass in Gniezno attended by 250,000 Poles that a wall of economic and political selfishness as divisive as the Communist-era Berlin Wall threatens unity in Europe. The presidents from Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania and Ukraine later had a private meeting with the pope. Without specifically mentioning NATO or the European Union, the pope urged continued commitment toward cooperation between European countries and added: “No country, even a weak one, can be left outside the sphere of the communities which are now arising.”