A priest for a people

A throng of over 200,000 faithful congregated in Warsaw on Sunday 6 June for the ceremony of beatification of the Polish priest Father Jerzy Popieluszko (1947-1984), who was abducted by members of the secret services of the Communist regime and killed at the age of 37. The many representatives of the civil authorities present at the ceremony included Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, and Lech Walesa, former Polish President and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The celebration was presided over by Mgr. Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Holy See’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and concelebrated by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, together with over a thousand bishops and priests. The report on this page is that of SIR Europe’s correspondent, Anna T. Kowalewska.Masses for the country. The winter of 1981 was particularly cold and severe. The martial law, imposed in mid-December by the Communist authorities to suffocate the Solidarnosc movement (in which 10 million Poles, more than a quarter of the entire nation, had participated), involved a curfew and the suspension of democratic liberties such as the right to demonstrate and hold public meetings, contributing to the dissemination of a climate of fear. Armoured vehicles patrolled the streets of the big cities: soldiers in full battle gear manned the intersections. Instilling a climate of terror was the task of the police, who arrested the activists of the free trade union and took them at the dead of night to unknown places of detention. The police arbitrarily searched us; they instilled us with fear; they threatened us, repressing with violence any voice contrary to the Communist atheism of the ruling party. In January of that winter, in the church of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Warsaw, Father Popieluszko celebrated the first of the masses “for the country” which then seemed tottering on the verge of civil war or about to be invaded by the Red Army. News of the “masses for the country” immediately spread among the people. In spite of the ban on holding public assemblies, a growing number of people from all walks of life: simple manual workers, representatives of the intellectual, cultural and artistic elites participated in the celebrations of Father Popieluszko. During the ceremony of beatification, Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw recalled that in his homilies “based on the teachings of John Paul II and Cardinal Wyszynski” Father Popieluszko had spoken of the freedom and truth then stifled by the regime, of those who had been arrested and held in internment camps, of those who had lost their jobs because they were members of the independent trade union, and of the families with young children who from one day to the next were stripped of all means of support, of miners massacred by the special units of the police in the mines of Wujek in Silesia and the other victims of the regime. Father Jerzy said these things in a simple and clear way, direct but measured, without hatred or any wish to foment revenge. “Let us vanquish evil with good”, he asked those who, during the mass, had not only made the sign of the cross, but had dared to raise their hands in a gesture of victory for the longed-for liberation from Soviet power. The words of Father Popieluszko made us feel united and enabled us to find the necessary courage to face, as if nothing had happened, the absurdity of our Polish troops patrolling the streets, overcome the terror of interrogation, and support prison and the rigours of daily life.The chaplain of Solidarnosc. The news of the atrocious death of the priest, which broke on 30 October 1984, ten days after his disappearance, horrified us all. He who had wished to vanquish evil by doing good had fallen victim of the Communist engine of repression. During the rite of beatification, the Archbishop of Warsaw recalled that “it was precisely due to this attitude of his that Father Popieluszko was considered dangerous for the Communist system and that the authorities of the regime unleashed a campaign of repression against him”. According to a survey conducted by the prestigious polling agency CBOS a month before the beatification, 78% of Poles declared they were familiar with the life of Father Popieluszko and were convinced of the national significance of his beatification. On one of the walls of the church of St. Stanislaus Kostka, main place of veneration of the new Blessed, among many plaques commemorating the Polish citizens who have given their lives in the name of God and their country, we also find one commemorating the Italian priest Father Giovanni Minzoni, clubbed to death on the evening of 23 August 1923 by two thugs of Italo Balbo. In the collective memory Father Popieluszko is recognized as the chaplain of Solidarnosc, patron of social justice and symbol of ideals that seem at times difficult to pursue today in a free, democratic and consumerist society. For some who participated in his masses and then, in spite of official prohibition, gathered in a huge crowd to attend his funeral rite, he remains the guide towards a deeper faith, a purer truth, and a more generous love for our fellowmen. For, as Father Jerzy himself declared, “the condemnation of evil, falsehood, cowardice, violence, hatred and oppression cannot in itself suffice for the Christian, who must also bear witness to the values he professes; he must be the spokesman and defender of justice, goodness, truth, freedom and love”.