A “gift for the Church” of Vienna: that’s how Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, President of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference and Archbishop of Vienna, described the many Polish faithful and the 180 Polish priests present in the archdiocese. “I can’t imagine what our diocese would be without the help of our Polish priests”, he said during a mass celebrated in the Gardekirche, the church of the Polish community. “On 7 September, when he comes to Vienna, the Pope will first go to welcome the Polish community”, announced Schönborn, explaining that Benedict XVI would go to see the statue of John Paul II placed in front of the church, in memory of his visit to his compatriots in the Austrian capital in 1983. On that occasion, John Paul II had inaugurated the organ in the Gardekirche. Great enthusiasm was aroused among the faithful by the fact that Cardinal Schönborn celebrated much of the mass in Polish: only the homily was spoken in German, though simultaneously translated. The churches of the Polish community are much visited: often, “as many as two thousand people take part in Sunday mass at 10.30”, said Father Zygmunt Waz, rector of the Gardekirche. He also emphasized the social function of the churches: “for many Polish families we are a point of encounter in Vienna and simultaneously a piece of our Polish homeland abroad”.
