Pope Prays For Protestant Victims

Standing in the rain at a momument to Protestant martyrs, Pope John Paul II sought Sunday to heal age-old wounds from Europe’s religious wars that were rubbed raw by his canonization of three Roman Catholic priests.

The five-minute stop on a street corner to commemorate the massacre of 24 Calvinists was a lastminute addition to the pope’s fourday trip to Slovakia.

It was added after thousands of Protestants protested Saturday, saying the canonization of the priests, who also were killed in the 17th-century wars, was one-sided.

“I greeted him, and thanked him for coming, and then we prayed the Our Father (the Lord’s Prayer) together,” said Jan Midriak, the Evangelical bishop of eastern Slovakia, who was at the monument to meet the pope.

“We really appreciate this gesture,” he said. “People died on both sides, and it was very right that the pope recognized that there were cruelties on both sides.”