St John Paul II remembered at fall of Berlin Wall ceremonies

In commemorations marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Cardinal Reinhard Marx recalled the importance of Pope St John Paul II’s groundbreaking fight for freedom in Poland.

This provided the momentum for the fall of the wall on 9 November 1989, he said at a festive ceremony at St Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin.

Hosted by the German bishops’ conference and attended by numerous politicians and churchmen from eastern and western Europe, the ceremony had Pope St John Paul’s famous words “Europe must breathe with both lungs – its eastern and its western lung” as its watchword.

The fall of the “Death Wall” in Berlin was an incentive for European unification, Cardinal Marx said. Unfortunately, there was still a “great lack of understanding” for other cultural groups in many parts of Europe. German-Polish reconciliation, in which the Churches had played a major role, was a good example of what could be done, Marx said.

The date of 9 November was one of the most “fateful” dates in modern German history, he recalled, as it also marked  “Kristallnacht” in 1938, the beginning of Jewish persecution in the Nazi era.

Pope Francis hailed St John Paul II on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall but carefully avoided criticising Communism. Francis expressed slightly muted praise for his predecessor’s role, saying he was “a protagonist” in the struggle that brought down the wall in 1989.

He said that “a culture of compromise” and “cooperation” would bring down walls of division “so that no more innocent people will be persecuted and even killed for their beliefs or religions”. “We need bridges not walls,” he added.