"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
"A man who tells the Truth is a free man despite external slavery, imprisonment or custody." - Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko, Sermon, October 31, 1982
Father Jerzy Popiełuszko ( September 14, 1947 - October 19, 1984)
At the Mass celebrated on the 40th anniversary of the death of Solidarity's chaplain
in the Church of St. Stanisław Kostka, President Andrzej Duda,
representatives of the PiS leadership (Jarosław Kaczyński and Przemysław
Czarnek), family of the priest Jerzy Popielłuszki, representatives of
Solidarity, clergy of the Archdiocese of Warsaw, and numerous faithful
gathered.
Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz's homily underscored that
Cardinal Jerzy Popiełuszko was a "witness to the gospel of love and a
defender of human dignity who taught to us to overcome evil with good."
Forty years ago today on October 19, 1984 the communist regime in Poland murdered a saint in the expectation that they could hang on to power. They had murdered
Father Jerzy Popiełuszko for being the chaplain to the fledgling
Solidarity Movement.
"After a Holy Mass in the Parish of the Holy Polish Martyr Brothers in Bydgoszcz, on their way to Warsaw, Father Jerzy Popiełuszko and Waldemar Chrostowski, the driver of Volkswagen Golf, were pulled over and kidnapped in Górsk by three security service officers (Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek Pękala and Waldemar Chmielewski) who were dressed as policemen. The agents operated under Independent Group "D" (disintegration) from the 4th Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At that point the trail ends. Nobody knows what really happened to Father Popiełuszko."
They had thought killing a symbol of freedom and
terrorizing the Polish people would silence the opposition. They counted
wrong. Less than five years later on June 4, 1989 Poland would be the
first country in Eastern Europe to hold free elections and sweep the communists from power nonviolently.
This was due in no small part to the teachings of the martyred priest Jerzy Popieluszko who called for an authentic reconciliation:
"Our Fatherland and respect of human dignity must be the common objective
for reconciliation. You must unite in reconciliation in the spirit of
love, but also in the spirit of justice. As the Holy Father said five
years ago, no love exists without justice. Love is greater than justice
and at the same time finds reassurance in justice."
Beatification is an act of the Pope who declares that a deceased person
lived a holy life and is worthy of public veneration. It is a first step
toward canonization. The video above shows Poles marching with relics
of the now beatified priest on their way to the main ceremony.
The following fragments, which may provide a better insight into the thinking of this moral exemplar,were taken in 2010 from a page dedicated to him by two Polish organizations - The Institute of National Remembrance and The National Centre for Culture, but is no longer up and running.
A fragment from the Sermon of 28 February 1982
"The church always stands on the side of truth. The church always stands on
the side of people who are victimized. Today the church stands on the
side of those who have lost their freedom, whose conscience is being
broken. Today the church stands on the side of the Solidarity, on the
side of the working people, who are often placed in one line along with
common criminals.
Dedication to freedom is tightly knit with human
nature and with mature national awareness. This dedication is
intertwined with the law and duty. It is intertwined with the law, and
thus every man and every nation must experience the suppression of
freedom as painful and unjust."
A fragment from the Sermon of 27 March 1983
"Our
Fatherland and respect of human dignity must be the common objective
for reconciliation. You must unite in reconciliation in the spirit of
love, but also in the spirit of justice. As the Holy Father said five
years ago, no love exists without justice. Love is greater than justice
and at the same time finds reassurance in justice.
And for you,
brothers, who carry in your hearts paid-for hatred, let it be a time of
reflection that violence is not victorious, though it may triumph for a
while. We have a proof of that standing underneath the Cross. There too
was violence and hatred for truth. But the violence and hatred were
defeated by the active love of Christ."
A fragment from the Sermon of 4 December 1983
"Work,
especially hard work, shapes love and social justice. It happens only
when work is ruled by the proper moral order. If there is no moral order
at work, in place of justice creeps hurt, and in place of love - hate.
That is why those who in recent decades have destroyed and are still
destroying the moral order do such harm to the working people and the
whole society.
When they want to replace Christian morality, rooted in a
thousand years of tradition, against the will of all with so-called
secular morality, in a Christian country there will always be a purulent
wound. They do harm when they exclude God from the workplace, and
believers are discriminated and usually can not occupy high positions.
The workers of August 1980 called more for moral order than for higher
wages.
The world opinion was struck by the fact that the events of
August were free of aggression, violence, that nobody was injured or
died, that they bore the clear stamp of religion. The Holy Father, John
Paul II, spoke of this in Katowice."
A fragment from the Sermon of 24 June 1984
"A condition for peace of conscience, peace in the family, peace in the Homeland and the world is justice based on love.(…)
(…)
Justice dictates each to be granted the rights they are due. And so the
right to work in accordance with your profession and not be thrown out
of work for your beliefs. The Primate of Poland spoke of this on 2
January 1982 in the following words: 'There is one matter which lies
heavy on the heart of the Church. It is the matter of the dismissals of
those who do not want to resign from the Solidarity trade union. And
we stand against this injustice which is an abuse of human rights'...”.
Let us celebrate and remember how Father Jerzy Popiełuszko and the message he shared with us.
Although it is true that Jesus Christ was sent to the whole world, to bring the Good News to all peoples and nations, it must be recognized that he also had his own country here on earth. A particular country, with its own history, religion and culture. He freely accepted some of the laws of his country, in spite of the fact that no man-made law could be binding upon God made man. By this he wanted to underline how important it is for us to realize that we all have a country of our own. All human beings are intimately connected with their respective countries, through their families and their place of birth.Our country, our Fatherland, our own native culture, every event in its history, be it a source of joy or grief, is our common heritage. The riches of our language, our works of art and music, our religion and our customs, are all a part of it.
I invite you to ponder awhile in our meditation today upon this word 'culture' . I realize that it is as vast as the ocean. I shall therefore try to point out only certain aspects of it, certain problems connected with this complex word.
Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, said to a gathering of young people:
'Culture is a manifestation of the human spirit in men. It is a confirmation of their humanity. Man creates culture and through culture forms himself. Culture is the common good of the nation..
The spiritual welfare of Poland depends on our Polish culture. It speaks for us and has formed us through the long centuries of our national existence, much more than our material wealth or our political frontiers. Thanks to our culture, this nation of ours remained faithful to itself in spite of losing its political independence for a very long time. It remained spiritually independent, because our culture ensured its survival.
From the very beginning our culture bears distinctive marks of Christianity. Christianity has always been present in it, whether in the history of our thought, art, poetry, music, drama or whatever. Throughout our history it has always received inspiration from the pages of the Gospels: Our great poet and seer, Adam Mickiewicz(1798-1855), wrote in The Books of the Polish Pilgrims: 'The only culture truly worthy of man is Christian Culture:
Thanks to Christianity we formed close ties with the culture of Western Europe and, thus armed, we were able to resist various attempts in our history to 'convert' us into other brands of culture by foreign invaders.
It was decided after the war that there would be no place in Polish national life for God or the Gospel. The young especially were to be brought up as if God did not exist. Those responsible for such measures evidently forgot that God is under no obligation to respect rules invented by men.
What is important today is to claim with great courage the rights due to us 'as a nation: the right to God, to love, to freedom of conscience, to our culture and to our national heritage~ A nation cannot advance into the future if it cuts itself off from its past and it should be remembered that the road upon which we have walked as a nation is a Christian road. It is unwise to sever the roots of a past lasting more than a thousand years. The tree without roots will soon be toppled over; we have had some examples of that happening during the last twenty years or so. . .
One cannot expect that a nation can abandon its past and start again from scratch. And we must not remain silent when our culture, our art and literature, is treated with contempt by those responsible for the education of our children; when Christian morality is replaced by a dubious socialist morality; when teachers in Warsaw schools openly declare to Christian parents that their children's education will be secularized.
To ban Christian truths, which for centuries have formed an intimate part of our national life, from the presence of children is to begin the destruction of their national identity. The school must teach our young people to love their country, to be proud of their national heritage. It cannot be an institution which is set up by the State for today only. The school must preserve and teach the vital link which binds our tomorrow with our yesterday. When our schools fail in this vital area of national life, the task becomes the duty and added responsibility of the Christian family.
The culture of a nation is also its morality. A Christian nation must be guided by our centuries-old and proven Christian morality. A Christian nation has no need of so-called secular morality, which, in the words of the late Cardinal Wyszyński, has no face and offers no hope. It creates a permanent threat to all the spiritual values of a nation and weakens the forces binding it together.
Our nation refused to lie down and die in spite of being torn to pieces, in spite of failing in one insurrection after another, in spite of numerous deportations to the frozen wastes of Siberia, in spite of the ruthless and relentless campaign to denationalize us and turn us into Russians ... How did we manage to resist the attempts of so many for so long? Because we had roots deep in our national past. Our nation could not be annihilated because it drew nourishment and found sustenance in our history and in our culture.
What kind of nourishment will be available to us in the near future if we agree to what is being 'prepared' for us now? Will it be possible for us to live on the lies published, daily and weekly, by Rzeczpospolita, Trybuna Ludu or Argumenty [Polish government newspapers]? On the shameful way our young are deprived of their national heritage, of their glorious history? On teaching methods designed to erase certain historical events from our national consciousness? How can all that provide a solid foundation for our future? What kind of spiritual food is being prepared for us by slandering Solidarność, by false imputations and harassment of its democratically elected leaders, by banishing crucifixes from OUT schools and workshops - a deplorable act our bishops are particularly concerned about?
All measures taken against our national culture cannot but be detrimental to our development, and this includes, in a Christian country, a style of government and administration contrary to Christian principles and which tramples upon the fundamental rights of the individual and the family.
Only a spiritually independent and truth-loving nation can survive and create cultural sustenance for future generations. It was given to us by our freedom fighters dying on the field of the battle. It was to be found in the works of prophetic poets who saw into the distant future, such as Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849). Living in exile, he was capable of seeing far ahead in time a free Poland – though Poland was then erased from the map of Europe- and a Polish Pope on the throne of St Peter. Only a nation healthy in its spirit and endowed with a sensitive conscience can look to a brave and smiling tomorrow.
Let us therefore take care to preserve our spiritual independence; we must not be defeated by fear or external threats. We must never let poison infect the soul of our nation. Adam Mickiewicz warned us:
Siberia is nothing, the whip is nothing, but the Nation's spirit poisoned -this is the pain of pains ...
Pawel Włodkowic [Polish lawyer and legate to the Council of Constance, 1414-8] said that cultural values and spiritual power are not to be secured by fire and sword, by oppression and violence, but by freedom, love and respect for the law.
You win people over with an open heart and not with a clenched fist. True knowledge, true wisdom, true culture do not tolerate chains. One cannot enslave a human mind. Hence we view with astonishment such facts as are known to us. For example, a world-famous professor has far less influence than administrative minions. What's more, and what's worse, according to the late Cardinal Wyszyński the State employs special 'inspectors' whose duty it is to see that men of knowledge and of science think 'correctly' - that is, not in accordance with the truth but in accordance with the party line.
Any attempt to restrict the freedom of the human mind, which is the creator of culture, is the enemy of all culture. This was brought home to the intellectuals by the patriotic movement of Polish workers in August 1980. Suddenly actors, journalists, writers, poets and painters understood. Their conscience woke up; the national conscience had, all along, been kept in suspended animation by the authorities. The year 1980 was a difficult one, but many positive traits of our nation were revealed: prudence, discretion, skill and an ability to work together. The social, professional, economic, cultural and political conscience came to life again. As did the conscience of our creative community. From now on they spoke with their own voice. They decided to serve the truth with all their talent and ability. To serve the truth in the country of our grandfathers. To serve our country, Poland, without any qualifying epithets.
But where a lie is officially cultivated, so to speak, there is hardly any room for the truth, which contradicts and exposes all lies for what they really are.
And so a new campaign began to take shape, stifling the truth, curbing the freedom of speech, the free and serious exchange of views that had been given full voice under the influence of this newly reborn conscience. Any attempt to invoke human rights was suddenly considered inspired by enemy action. And yet it was in1978 that the Primate of Poland had written to the then Minister for Church Affairs, Mr. Kąkol:
The defense of human rights cannot be considered as a political activity par excellence because surely it is the duty of the citizen. The enemies of the socialist state are to be found within the ranks of those keeping cowardly silence and not amongst those who yearn to know the truth about Poland, the truth crippled and contaminated by official teaching ...
The thing about conscience is, once it awakes, it finds little difficulty in telling the wheat from the chaff. It will readily understand that big slogans and streaming banners as a kind of national panacea are empty of meaning when at the same time innocent people are being kept in prison because they have shown their concern for the common good, when new arrests are being made and people are being sacked from their jobs, when special detachments of militia are created to follow and monitor the life of the citizens.
During the recent past creative people became an example to us all, especially actors, who since the fateful events of 13 December1981 have shown an extraordinary, in our post–war years, strength of spirit, courage and generosity.
Today our Church looks with misgivings upon new dangers threatening the progress of our national culture.
Our bishops have said many times that to achieve a real social consensus, religion and culture are indispensable. It is therefore absolutely essential to secure complete freedom for the development of religious and cultural life. A good example of this would be to allow the publication of Catholic newspapers to proceed unhampered ,in accordance with the needs of the faithful and to guarantee that there is a pluralism of views in all areas of the creative arts.
In February of this year the authorities expressed concern that the creative community, whose active participation in the life of the country was considered indispensable , was seething with problems. It was said that people engaged in cultural work and in the arts should have reasonable conditions of life, work and association. How unintelligible and damaging, then, in the light of this, are the decisions to ban existing associations of creative people like actors and journalists, and, lately, writers: the Writers Union, established sixty years ago by Stefan Żeromski, a candidate for the Nobel prize for literature in 1924, has been dissolved by the authorities.
These decisions are not understood and are a source of grief, especially because the charters of these banned associations were originally approved by the same authorities and none of them changed anything in their statutes during the period of martial law. How are we to understand the declaration made by the Military Council for National Salvation that all associations temporarily suspended will be able to resume their activity within the bounds of their statutes?
It is also quite clear that cultural development is not advanced by the existence of all-powerful censorship which persecutes the press, especially the Catholic press (not the pseudo-Catholic papers) by cutting out words, phrases and complete articles, every true and brave utterance. It cuts and destroys what is written by an honest pen dipped in the truth. And it should be obvious that words, if they are to live, must be true. Lying words, more often than not, appear as contemptible rubbish the next day in spite of the efforts to flood the readers with papers with circulations running into millions of copies. Our Catholic papers, victimized by the brutality of censorship, will make a poor historical record.
Let's face it, culture means honest dialogue and the frank exchange of views, an honest battle of words - not the habitual rantings of official polemicists, who one-sidedly cover their opponents in mud through all the mass media freely open to them.
Let us finish our reflection today with words our Holy Father used when praying to Mary, Holy Mother of God, on 31 March 1982:
Into your hands, O Mother of Jasna Góra, we place the present day and the tomorrow of our national culture. Let our national life continue to grow in it and develop to the full...
"Overcome evil with good" -Father Jerzy Popieluszko
Jerzy Popiełuszko was born on September 14, 1947 and he was murdered by agents of the Polish internal intelligence agency, (Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs)on October 19, 1984. He was a Roman Catholic priest from Poland, associated with the Solidarity union. He has been recognized as a martyr by the Catholic Church, and was beatified on Sunday, June 6, 2010 in Warsaw with more than 150,000 in attendance.
Beatification is an act of the Pope who declares that a deceased person lived a holy life and is worthy of public veneration. It is a first step toward canonization. The video above shows Poles marching with relics of the now beatified priest on their way to the main ceremony.
In a message to the beatification Mass from Nicosia, Cyprus, Pope Benedict said the priest's "sacrificial service and martyrdom" was a "special mark of the victory of good over evil" and offered an example to Catholic clergy and laity everywhere. The video below is of the main service. Popieluszko's mother, Marianna Popieluszko, who recently turned 100 attended the ceremonies and spoke to reporters beforehand: "I cried when my son left this earth, and now it is with joy that I greet his beatification." When asked what the secret is to raising a son like Father Popieluszko, she replied: "Love people, Love God, with all your heart."
Two movies have been made about the life and death of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, one a Hollywood production in 1988 starring Ed Harris and a Polish Production in 2009 that although taking some dramatic license outline the courageous life he led.
This blog entry focusing on some of his core ideas may provide a better insight into the thinking of this moral exemplar. The following fragments are taken from a page dedicated to him by two Polish organizations - The Institute of National Remembrance and The National Centre for Culture.
A fragment from the Sermon of 28 February 1982 The church always stands on the side of truth. The church always stands on the side of people who are victimized. Today the church stands on the side of those who have lost their freedom, whose conscience is being broken. Today the church stands on the side of the Solidarity, on the side of the working people, who are often placed in one line along with common criminals. Dedication to freedom is tightly knit with human nature and with mature national awareness. This dedication is intertwined with the law and duty. It is intertwined with the law, and thus every man and every nation must experience the suppression of freedom as painful and unjust.
A fragment from the Sermon of 27 March 1983 Our Fatherland and respect of human dignity must be the common objective for reconciliation. You must unite in reconciliation in the spirit of love, but also in the spirit of justice. As the Holy Father said five years ago, no love exists without justice. Love is greater than justice and at the same time finds reassurance in justice.
And for you, brothers, who carry in your hearts paid-for hatred, let it be a time of reflection that violence is not victorious, though it may triumph for a while. We have a proof of that standing underneath the Cross. There too was violence and hatred for truth. But the violence and hatred were defeated by the active love of Christ.
A fragment from the Sermon of 4 December 1983 Work, especially hard work, shapes love and social justice. It happens only when work is ruled by the proper moral order. If there is no moral order at work, in place of justice creeps hurt, and in place of love - hate. That is why those who in recent decades have destroyed and are still destroying the moral order do such harm to the working people and the whole society. When they want to replace Christian morality, rooted in a thousand years of tradition, against the will of all with so-called secular morality, in a Christian country there will always be a purulent wound. They do harm when they exclude God from the workplace, and believers are discriminated and usually can not occupy high positions. The workers of August 1980 called more for moral order than for higher wages. The world opinion was struck by the fact that the events of August were free of aggression, violence, that nobody was injured or died, that they bore the clear stamp of religion. The Holy Father, John Paul II, spoke of this in Katowice.
A fragment from the Sermon of 24 June 1984 A condition for peace of conscience, peace in the family, peace in the Homeland and the world is justice based on love.(…)
(…) Justice dictates each to be granted the rights they are due. And so the right to work in accordance with your profession and not be thrown out of work for your beliefs. The Primate of Poland spoke of this on 2 January 1982 in the following words: “There is one matter which lies heavy on the heart of the Church. It is the matter of the dismissals of those who do not want to resign from the “Solidarity” trade union. And we stand against this injustice which is an abuse of human rights...”.
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