FRONT PAGE
Poland and Europe
Pope Benedict XVI’s recent journey to Poland, from 25 to 28 May 2006, permits us to emphasise the role of the land of John Paul II in the new European perspectives. It is curious that Western Europe continues to consider the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which have by their own efforts liberated themselves from Communism, with a mixture of contempt and fear, and at the most as potential new markets. It is the merit of the Holy Father to have opened the way to a new and more liberated regard for these countries. That’s especially true of Poland, a nation of ancient Catholic tradition, where the regular attendance at Sunday mass brings together 45% of the population. Poland lies at the very heart of Europe; it epitomises its history, its sufferings and its hopes. Poland built up its identity on the foundations of the Christian faith. If there is a European country where the notion of Christian roots finds a natural application, that country is Poland. It is this strong identity that helped the Poles never to surrender to Nazism or to the Communist regime, as testified by the publications of the Znak publishing house even during the dictatorship, and by the creation of the trades union Solidarnosc, vanguard of the peaceful toppling of the Communist regime in 1989. Poland has the peculiarity of being situated between East and West, in an often tense contact with the Orthodox world, but also possessing a great Jewish tradition, almost as if to remind us providentially, though not without difficulty, what Christianity owes to Judaism. In Poland, Karol Wojtyla encountered Judaism, and it is no accident that the greatest progress was made in Judeo-Christian dialogue during his pontificate. Poland is also the land of suffering, division and hatred at the heart of Europe. Its history has been tormented: it has repeatedly been partitioned between the big powers; it has suffered persecutions and deportations throughout its history. It is the country where the Nazis installed their death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, “this place of horror, of the accumulation of crimes against God and against man unparalleled in history”, this place where God “remained silent” said the Pope, who had come to the place of crime as “son of Germany”. Unfortunately anti-Semitic hatred continues to thrive in Poland, as in Europe as a whole, but the visit of Benedict XVI underlined the impossibility of Christian anti-Semitism. Poland, today, is the hope of a future of reconciliation. Poland is above all the symbol of the other great European reconciliation, of which too little is spoken, because it is exemplary, after the Franco-German reconciliation: I mean the reconciliation between Germany and Poland, a process opened with great patience by the bishops, in particular by the then archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla. Poland’s hope also springs from her accession to the European Union in 2004. The road it opened is difficult, full of pitfalls, because enlargement was not properly prepared, because it demands painful social and economic adjustments and contains the risk of a nationalist and populist reaction. But this membership of the EU, apart from all the difficulties, sets the seal on Poland’s European destiny. In the space of a few days, passing through the places of the country’s political identity (Warsaw), Christian identity (Czestochowa, Krakow, Wadowice, the sanctuaries of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska and Lagiewniki with the tomb of St. Faustina Kowalska), and inhuman suffering (Auszchwitz-Birkenau), Benedict XVI, the German pope who succeeded a Polish pope, proposed to Europe a Poland strong in its roots, reconciled with its own history, without ever forgetting it, and open to the future. That is the profoundly spiritual sense of his journey.
