When Pope John Paul starts a trip to Slovakia this Thursday, his attention will go beyond the hundreds of thousands of Catholics who will turn out to see him. He will have the very future of Europe in his sights.
Given the pope's advancing age and ailments, his followers here know each trip to his native region of central Europe, where he spurred the struggle against Soviet domination and was instrumental in its fall, could be his last.
The four-day trip -- his 102nd outside Italy -- will once again put the health of the 83-year-old Roman Catholic leader under the spotlight just a month ahead of the 25th anniversary of his election.
But the Church under the long-serving pontiff is still well capable of high politics, and the visit may show signs of how the Vatican will press its vision for Europe after Slovakia and seven other ex-Soviet satellites join the European Union next May.
While governments in the West are mostly set to secular norms -- divorce and abortion are legal almost universally, and gay marriages are becoming more frequent -- the legal character of central Europe's future EU members is still up for grabs.
With this in mind, the pope is expected to rally Slovaks and the rest of the region's Catholic faithful to defend their "authentic Christian" values -- Vatican shorthand for upholding the traditional concepts of marriage and sexuality.
"It will be a spiritual wake-up call," beams Frantisek Miklosko, a member of parliament and presidential hopeful for the ruling coalition Christian Democrat party (KDH).
CHURCH'S ROLE EMERGING
After surviving over 40 years under the boot-heel of communism, the Catholic Church has emerged as a dominant moral authority and placed itself squarely in the debate on key public policy issues in countries like Slovakia, Poland and Croatia.
In his native Poland last year he warned against the evils of unbridled Western-style secularism, and more recently, he urged Croatian believers to defend "God's authentic plan" for the family, a clear swipe at gay marriages and divorce.
This message, which at times find support in public policy, adds to the weight that Christian values will bear in pan-European politics once the Union enlarges.
It could also help in cases like the Vatican's controversial call for the Union to specifically affirm its Christian roots in a proposed constitution, or the possible fate of Turkey, a secularist, but Muslim-dominated EU hopeful.
"The pope has a very clear agenda of reinforcing support for traditional Catholic morality, expressed in law in countries like Slovakia before they move into the EU, because that is the way to preserve the Christian tradition in Europe," said Timothy Byrnes, a professor of political science at Colgate University.
RE-EVANGILIZING EUROPE
"The pope's European agenda ... is to reinsert traditional Catholic morality into a unified Europe," said Byrnes.
Evidence of the Church's rising influence in Slovakia has been difficult to miss. It has teamed up with its small but vocal political ally, the KDH, to push for arch-conservative policies.
The KDH's public support is less than 10 percent, but with the Church regularly addressing Slovakia's 70 percent Catholic majority, it wields powerful sway over the country's politicians, schools and police.
Over the past year, the party has managed to secure government funding for church-run schools and has a good chance of pushing through a treaty with the Vatican requiring religion classes for public-school pupils.
It has also successfully blocked EU-required legislation preventing discrimination against homosexuals.
Secularists among Slovakia's 5.4 million people protest that the Church is meddling too deeply in peoples' everyday lives and is ignoring its duty to remain apart from state affairs.
"It's not acceptable, because of course, these are minority opinions ... When we discuss questions tied to character of the state, there should really be a wider discussion," said Miroslav Kolar, an analyst at the independent IVO think-tank.
ABORTION ISSUE A FLASHPOINT
But the hottest flashpoint issue here is abortion.
The KDH has appealed to the Constitutional Court against rules that generally allow women to have abortions in the first three months of pregnancy.
It has also blocked moves to enshrine into law a controversial government decree allowing abortions in the second three months in cases of serious genetic defects and which mirrors widely recognized norms in western Europe.
The issue has sparked open hostility between the KDH and its liberal ruling partners, almost causing the government's collapse over the summer.
While the KDH has fought on in the legal battlefield, the Church plans to weigh in on the public front during the pope's visit.
Roznova Bishop Eduard Kojnok plans to present the pope with a pair of Siamese twins on a stop in the eastern town of Roznova "to demonstrate what a mother would lose if she decides to kill (them) because of a defect."
"If she had decided not to give them life, she would have lost two beautiful girls ... And we dare to take such life away," he said.