Pope in Croatia on 100th trip
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Pope John Paul II on board a catamaran approaching the Croatian harbor town of Rijeka.
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As the Pope begins his 100th trip, CNN's Alessio Vinci sat down with former TIME magazine correspondent Wilton Wynn who covered the Pope when he first came into office (June 5)
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RIJEKA, Croatia (CNN) -- Pope John Paul II arrived in Croatia Thursday on what is his 100th trip since he began his pontificate.
The five-day trip is the 83-year-old pontiff's third visit to the Balkan nation and comes as he celebrates his 25th year as pope. He was installed on October 16, 1978.
John Paul has covered more than 700,000 miles in his travels and has delivered more than 2,300 speeches. He has visited more than 600 cities, some more than once, and 179 countries.
According to Vatican planners, the pope will address issues such as peaceful co-existence and religious tolerance in the Balkan nation. He also voiced support for Croatia's bid to join the European Union.
"Croatia has recently asked to become an integral part, also from the political and economic point of view, of the great family of the European peoples," the pope said on his arrival at the airport here. "I can only express my hope that this aspiration will be happily realized."
Croatia, where more than 80 percent of the population is Catholic, has been described by the pope as a "land of fearless witness to the Gospel."
"This country, like several neighboring countries, still bears painful signs of a recent past," the pope said in his address. "May those who exercise civil and religious authority never tire of trying to heal the wounds caused by a cruel war and of rectifying the consequences of a totalitarian system that for all too long attempted to impose an ideology opposed to man and his dignity."
He plans to visit five cities from one end of the country to the other during his stay -- Dubrovnik, Osijek, Djakovo, Rijeka, and Zadar.
The Vatican was among the first to recognize the former Yugoslav republic's independence in 1992.
-- CNN Rome Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci contributed to this report
