World: The Pope Who Sings

Seated at a Rome refectory table, a young priest tells of hearing the Pope at his window singing along with a choir far below in St. Peter's Square. An older priest shakes his head. "This could not happen," he says emphatically. "Popes do not sing."

That may have been true in the past. But no longer. Last week, as Pope John Paul II made his triumphal progress through Poland, the watching world began to grasp what people in Rome and the highly conservative Vatican Curia have known for months: this Pope not only sings, but he sings out. He also kisses babies, cuts red tape, says what he thinks, has an actor's (or a politician's) delight in an audience, and a former laborer's gift for gauging the common touch of a crowd.

In contrast to his introverted, complex predecessor, Paul VI, the Pope is an outgoing man who treats the people around him, and indeed the whole Roman Catholic Church, with infectious optimism. As Wilton Wynn, TIME bureau chief in Rome, reports, John Paul's impact is electric, exceeding even that of another people's Pope, the beloved John XXIII. Pilgrims throng the Vatican at a rate normally seen only in once-a-generation Holy Years. Vendors have sold more photos of John Paul since October than they did of Paul VI during his 15 years as Pope. Priests who hear confessions in St. Peter's have encountered five times the number of penitents.

The Wednesday general audiences have been moved outdoors to St. Peter's Square unusually early in the year to meet popular demand. An unprecedented 50,000 to 80,000 people now regularly attend. To ease the midday traffic chaos, the starting time was shifted from noon to 6 p.m. Unlike past Popes, John Paul reaches out to press the flesh as he roams the piazza in an open van.

Even anticlerical observers in Rome admit, rather glumly, that John Paul has galvanized Italian Catholics, especially the young. Says Cesare Pagani, Bishop of Città di Castello: "The arrival of Pope Wojtyla has turned our youth upside down. They are taking over the leadership of the young again to advance not only the ecclesiastical but the civil life of our country."

Most modern Popes have been Bishop of Rome in name only. As the first non-Italian in Peter's Chair in 455 years, John Paul plunged forth from the Apostolic Palace to learn his new turf. Each Sunday he visits a different parish and, in preparation, summons the parish priest to brief him. What is the street layout? How did the people vote in the last election? What are their problems? After one visit, he invited the parish priest back to the Vatican for supper and an evening of sipping the priest's homemade wine".

On his pastoral rounds, John Paul never neglects the personal touch. At ceremonies, the Pope invariably will pause to lead a wandering child back to his astonished parents. A street sweeper's daughter asks him to perform her wedding and he instantly agrees. On a Sunday afternoon he stands on a field, racquet in hand, as it starts to rain. One of the young people who surround him suggests he seek shelter. Replies the Pope: "We athletes are not afraid of rain."