Pope

The rowhouse windows of tiny Webb Street were dark, except for one home midway down the working-class block, where the front door was wide open. Light poured into the street, illuminating rain, and in the picture window was the red and white flag of Poland, which yesterday was accented with a ribbon of black. It was the middle of the night, yet Jozef Gredzik rushed to the door in a shirt and tie. His wife, Elizabeth, had put on a necklace and lipstick. "It's a special day today," he explained.

Today Pope John Paul II travels to Athens, a journey of less than a thousand miles and more than a thousand years - the length of time a deep schism has separated the Roman Catholic Church from that of Orthodox Christians. In one of the boldest ecumenical gestures of his 22-year pontificate, the Pope is visiting a country of 11 million, only 50,000 of whom are Roman Catholic, and many in the overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox majority are not happy about the visit. Thousands of clergy and laity already have demonstrated, some carrying banners reading "Out with the Pope" and "Two-horned heretic," and monks on holy Mount Athos have staged all-night protest vigils.

John Paul II may be the most recognized and beloved human being of all time. His pontificate has been extraordinary; the world he leaves behind is very different from the one he entered on the day of his election on Oct. 16, 1978, the first non-Italian elected in 455 years. He inherited a Europe split between the Soviet satellite states, whose hostility toward religious belief sought to minimize the influence of Christianity, and a free Europe fascinated with prosperity and freedom.

Just in time for the papal visit, here's Padre Nuestro, in part an irreverent comic dialogue between the Pope and a high-ranking cardinal whom His Holiness chides by saying, "You Spaniards have such a sense of tragedy. " Not so Spaniard Francisco Regueiro, who directed this wryly witty - and ravishingly lovely - film that recalls the discreet (and anticlerical) charm of his late countryman, Luis Bunuel. Although we never see the Pope full face, we see his gentle hands and hear him tenderly console the cardinal (Fernando Rey)

When Pope Benedict XVI visits Washington this month, he'll sit on a chair designed and built by craftsmen in the Philadelphia suburbs. The chair was designed at the DiCocco Family's St. Jude Shop in Havertown. Last week, the chair left the shop and became, for reasons of security, a ward of the U.S. Secret Service. "I hope they're careful with it," said John Huprich, who carried out the project in his Perkasie wood shop. "We don't want any nicks. " The chair is scheduled to resurface April 16 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Born to pagan parents and raised in a mud house with a thatched roof, Francis Arinze was introduced to Roman Catholicism at the local parish school he attended. It was one thing for Joseph Arinze Nwankwu, a farmer, to accept his son's conversion at age 9. But when as a teenager Arinze announced his plan to enter seminary, his father so opposed Francis' vocation that he plotted to have his name scratched from the enrollment. "Since that name was not canceled out," said the Rev. Patrick Ndulue, a parish priest ordained by Arinze, "Francis went from nothing to become a bishop in the Catholic Church.

A quarter-century later, he's back to the future. A quarter-century after Paul Owens began assembling the greatest team in Phillies history, the Phillies have remembered he's still around. Finally, they are tapping into his font of wisdom again. Finally, they are allowing him to be actively involved in all phases of this team again. Finally, they have hauled his blueprints out of the attic and are using them to rebuild this baseball team the way Owens built his own quasi-dynasty in the '70s.

As Pope John Paul II readies himself for his second visit to the United States next month, tonight NBC will precede him by examining the state of the Roman Catholic Church in four cities where he will stop. God Is Not Elected, anchored with great charm and presence by Maria Shriver, will begin at 10 p.m. on Channel 3. The one-hour documentary will include reports from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and San Antonio, Texas. The Pope also will visit Miami, New Orleans; Phoenix; Columbia, S.C., and Monterey, Calif.

From skyscrapers and sidewalks, from bridges and highways - even from the grandstand at Aqueduct Racetrack - more than a million eyes will gaze upon him. To some he may appear as just a glimpse of white: a distant figure greeting them with arms aloft or waving from his motorcade. For many, even a glimpse of a Pope becomes a lifelong memory. No modern head of state, no other religious figure seems to excite whole cities - even whole nations - quite like the Pope. When Pope John Paul II visits New York, Newark and Baltimore next month, he'll turn heads, stop traffic, thrill the faithful, and make memories, just as he did in Philadelphia 16 years ago. "I'm very excited," says Maria Kobrinsky, 21, of Ventnor, who will trek to North Jersey to see him. "Spiritually, I feel it will be uplifting.