POPE Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II (Karol Jozef Wojtyla), wrote poetry.

His book Easter Vigil and other Poems containing work composed by him as a young priest and subsequently Bishop of Krakow under a pen name appeared in translation in 1979, after his elevation to the papacy. Here, from it, is a short poem about moral responsibility and the arms trade. The translator, Professor Jerzy Peterkiewicz, explained that he had tried to convey "the mind behind the text," realising the characteristics of Polish verse differ in many respects from English.

THE ARMAMENTS FACTORY WORKER

I cannot influence the fate of the globe.

Do I start wars? How can I know

whether I'm for or against?

No, I don't sin.

It worries me not to have influence,

that it is not I who sin.

I only turn screws, weld together

parts of destruction,

never grasping the whole,

or the human lot.

I could do otherwise (would parts be left out?)

contributing then to sanctified toil

which no one would blot out in action

or belie in speech.

Though what I create is all wrong,

the world's evil is none of my doing.

But is that enough?