Remembering the Messenger of Truth 40 Years Later: Father Jerzy Popiełuszko

 "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.

The Institute of National Remembrance tweeted what is known about the extrajudicial killing of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko by agents of the communist dictatorship in Poland.

"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."

Father Popiełuszko 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.

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.

He was a messenger of truth.

Father Miguel Angel Loredo: “I enjoy this life. It all has been a blessing.” requiescat in pace

“I discovered St. Francis of Assisi when I was 16 years old and realized this is what I wanted for my life.” - Father Miguel Angel Loredo, Holy Name Province Today Newsletter August 18, 2010

Father Miguel Angel Loredo (1998)

First learned about the case of Father Miguel Angel Loredo when I saw the 1987 documentary Nobody Listened co-directed by Néstor Almendros and Jorge Ulla and at 8 minutes and 13 seconds in the video below you can listen to an excerpt of his testimony in a parallel forum in Geneva from that documentary.



Eleven years later four days prior to Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with Father Miguel Angel Loredo over the course of a weekend of conferences and activities to highlight the voice of the Cuban dissident movement in a gathering titled "L'altra Cuba: le voci della dissidenza" org. dalla Associazione Cuba Libera" [The other Cuba: the voice of the dissidents organized by the Cuba Libera Association]. Over the years I was blessed to run into him at different Cuba venues and engage him in conversation.

The gatherings were usually with other former political prisoners and within a context of advocating for Cuban freedom. However, it was at that first meeting where Father Miguel Angel Loredo together with Mario Chanes de Armas and Ricardo Bofill sat down with Dariel Alarcon Ramirez a.k.a "Benigno", the man who had been their jailer in Cuba. These men led by Father Loredo offered an example of true reconciliation. Experiences were exchanged, injustices highlighted and the brutal history faithfully reconstructed by all parties. It was a painful process but one in which truth was highlighted and at the same time all of them signed onto a petition requesting that Pope John Paul II intercede on behalf of Cuba's political prisoners.

Father Miguel Angel Loredo with Pope John Paul II

In Matthew 7:15-7:16 the Gospel states "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits." From the very beginning, truth has often been a casualty of the communist regime in Cuba. In addition to fabricating falsehoods against Father Loredo the communists also distorted and twisted the life of a catholic martyr. Five years prior to Loredo's arrest on September 10, 1961 a catholic youth, Arnaldo Socorro, age 20 , was shot in the back by a member of the communist militia in front of the Church of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre in Havana as he carried an image of the Virgin of Charity. But in order to fool public opinion at the time, the regime buried him with the honors of a communist militant.

Father Miguel Angel Loredo is a formal adversary of the dictatorship in Cuba because he understands that one of the most formidable weapons against injustice is objective truth. In an excellent article in El Nuevo Herald by Juan Carlos Chavez, this man of the cloth explained the importance of objective truth within human rights reporting:

"I believe we should denounce the evils of both the right and the left. I find selective denuncation, that has political roots repugnant. If you believe in the integrity of the human being you must believe deeply in objective denunciation. Without objectivity, there is no hope.

EWTN published the following brief account of the life of Father Miguel Angel Loredo in English:

Fr. Loredo was born in Havana in 1938. When Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, young Miguel Angel had already decided to become a priest. He traveled to Spain where he was ordained on July 19, 1964.

One month later he returned to Cuba, where the tense relations between the Church and new Communist government resulted in the expulsion of 131 priests in 1961.

Fr. Loredo was sent to the Church of St. Francis in Havana. He was also pastor in the city of Guanabacoa. However, his fiery sermons against atheism and Communism enraged Cuban officials who accused him of being a spy for the CIA, hiding weapons and participating in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. He was arrested in 1966.

Fr. Loredo always maintained his innocence, but after a fraudulent trial he was sentenced to 15 years. He spent time in numerous prisons, where he underwent forced labor and beatings for not accepting the “re-education” that the government tried to force upon him.

In a letter dated June 11, 1968, Fr. Loredo told Msgr. Cesar Sacchi, at the time the representative of the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana, that he felt “proud to participate in this struggle with thousands of men of great courage and patriotism like those in this Cuban prison. … I also want to tell you that I am sorry to see how the free West has forgotten us, how everyone is silent and indifferent, except for the complaints of helpless loved ones.”

On February 2, 1976, he was released and ordered not to speak in public or give interviews to the press. However, the government would not accept his appointment as professor of theology at the Seminary of Sts. Charles and Ambrose in Havana, and he was exiled to Rome in 1984.

In 1987 he moved to Puerto Rico, where he continued his ministry, with Cuba and the struggle for human rights always present in his work. In 1991 he was sent to the Church of St. Francis in New York.

In 1998, Fr. Loredo was chosen to be part of a group of priests who would travel to Cuba for Pope John Paul II’s visit. However, the Cuban government refused to allow him to enter the country.

Abel Nieves Morales, one of many prisoners who shared a cell with the priest, said Fr. Loredo “was a very courageous man, firm in his principles and in his faith, and who never ceased to raise his voice to denounce the horrors … in the prisons of Cuba.”

The EWTN article got one fact wrong, although an understandable error considering that Miami is the capital of the Cuban exile community. They reported that Father Loredo had passed away in Miami, when in fact he had passed away in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age of 73.

Diario Las Americas reports that on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 8:00pm a Eucharist will be celebrated at Our Lady of Charity (La Ermita de la Caridad) located at 3609 South Miami Avenue Miami, FL. 33133. Family members, friends and all those who admire and celebrate his life and his commitment with God and with a free Cuba are invited to participate. What better way to remember him?

requiescat in pace

Jerzy Popiełuszko: Catholic Martyr & Polish Hero Beatified

"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...”.