Pope Benedict XVI offered condolences to Poland on Sunday following a plane crash that killed the country's president and other senior officials, saying he was praying for the victims and the "beloved" Polish nation.
Poles holding up the red-and-white banners of the Polish flag sang mournfully after the pope spoke during his noon blessing from the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo. Benedict said he had learned with sadness of the crash and the deaths.
"They perished during a trip to Katyn, the place of execution of thousands of Polish military officials assassinated 70 years ago," Benedict said in Polish, referring to the Poles systematically executed by Josef Stalin's NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, in 1940.
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