The Czechs should never forget what late Pope John Paul II did for
them, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg who represented the Czech
Republic at the ceremony at which Pope Benedict XVI declared his
predecessor beatified at the Vatican Sunday.
"This great man really loved us and he took care of us," Schwarzeberg
told Czech Proglas Radio Sunday about the late Pope from Poland.
Czech Cardinal Miloslav Vlk also said John Paul II had a strong relation to Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.
John Paul II was the first Slavic pope. He assumed the office at a
time when central and eastern Europe were separated by the Iron Curtain.
He visited the then Czechoslovakia in 1990, only five months after
the fall of communism.
Czechoslovakia was the second country of the
former eastern bloc, after Poland, that he visited, at the invitation of
then President Vaclav Havel.
John Paul II died in 2005.
Czech archbishops Dominik Duka and Jan Graubner took part in the
Vatican ceremony, along with some 600 of Czech Catholic pilgrims and
hundreds of thousands of other believers, including many Poles.
Being beatified, John Paul II received the title Blessed, is from the Catholic Church.