An Interview with Katarzyna Walkowska and Krzysztof Ślusarz

 The mismatched towers of the medieval Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (St. Mary’s Basilica) dominate the immense Central Square at the heart of Kraków. Capital of Poland for some six centuries until the late 1500s, Kraków is still the nation’s second largest city. There are some 30 Catholic churches in its historic Old Town alone.
Besides Mass many offer traditional Adoration, at which the faithful pray before the consecrated Eucharist and thus, according to Catholic doctrine, in the tangible presence of Jesus Christ. St. Mary’s Basilica is unusual in this respect because its Adoration also provides a focus for evangelization. Members of the parish’s Christ in Old Town community—typically young adults—invite strangers in to experience this contemplative practice, referencing Jeremiah 1:7: “But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am too young.” You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.’” 

In August 2022 the editor of the East-West Church Report met two members of Christ in Old Town community, Katarzyna Walkowska and Krzysztof Ślusarz, both in their 30s. Beneath the bells of St. Mary’s—their deep chime regularly reverberating across the city—the pair spoke about life as devout members of the Catholic Church, as well as its position in today’s Poland. The interview took place in English.

 How prominent was the Catholic faith in both your family backgrounds?

 Katarzyna: My family originally came from Wołyń [Volhynia], now part of Ukraine. They escaped from there during the Second World War. When my grandmother was five or six years old, she and her mother and sister were leaving Sunday Mass when they were warned not to go home because people were waiting there to kill them. So they never did go back home. They lost their farm but—like other people who escaped from that region—they later received land in the area of Poland close to the German border, near Wrocław [previously under German rule].

 My parents decided to move away from Poland due to the Communist regime. I spent my childhood in Bavaria, where we were active in the local Polish community—there were very many Poles there. We were also involved in the Light-Life movement started by Fr. [Franciszek] Blachnicki, whose beatification process is ongoing. This was a way to bring Catholics together, especially families and young people. During the summers we would all gather for retreats. 

 [Editor’s note: For resisting invading Nazi forces as a young man, Blachnicki was incarcerated, including at Auschwitz. Finding faith in God while in prison, he opted to become a priest after liberation. For decades, the Communist authorities in Poland hounded Fr. Blachnicki for his church activism; he died in exile in Germany in 1987. In March 2023, following the exhumation of Fr. Blachnicki’s remains, Poland’s current Minister of Justice determined that he had been poisoned.]

Once freedom had come to Poland, my family moved back here in 1994. I attended a Catholic high school run by the Salesians of Don Bosco before studying architecture and art back in Germany. I also studied in New York, but found I did not fit in with the Polish community there. They were mostly older, having moved to the US during the Second World War, while I was on a different wavelength. I felt more at home among American Catholics at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Franciscan Friars of Renewal [a Capuchin Franciscan movement founded in New York in 1987] also had a great influence on me, and I traveled with them to the [anti-abortion] March for Life in Washington, DC. I had already learned English living and working in an Opus Dei house in London after graduating high school in 2004. 

Krzysztof: I was born and raised in Poland. I’m from Silesia, around 60 km [35 miles] west of Kraków, but half my family is from the mountains [to the south]. My mother’s family is huge, and we cousins were all raised together. From an early age I was involved in church—my parents took care of that. We received baptism and the sacraments, prayed together at home, and always went to church together on Sundays. There was never a question of, “We are too tired after the working week; we are not going; we need to take a rest.” Church was not something under discussion. 

I recall a situation when I was seven or eight years old, one December prior to Christmas. My mother worked late night shifts at a hospital. She came home early one morning and said she was too tired to go to Holy Mass. I said, “Okay, just unlock the front door—I will go by myself.” It was still pitch dark outside, snow everywhere, and the church was around half an hour’s walk away. But I remember feeling that I needed to go there. 

After graduating high school in 2009 I moved to Kraków to study political science at the Ignatianum, a Jesuit university. There, Holy Masses are served in a church right next to the university building.

 How did you both come to be involved with Christ in Old Town’s regular adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Mary’s Basilica in downtown Kraków?

 Krzysztof: One of my political science professors at the Ignatianum was Dr. Paula Olearnik-Szydłowska, who came to us from Georgetown University [Jesuit-affiliated university in Washington, DC]. In 2012, after she had been in Kraków a few months, she invited some students to an adoration at St. Mary’s Basilica—she had experienced the adoration in Rome and was missing it in Kraków, and so she was trying to organize something similar here. That is how our Christ in Old Town community began. 

 Most members of our community are used to going out from the church and inviting people to come inside. Obviously, it is not an easy job to approach people that you meet on the street, but one of the main goals of our community is to invite people who may not have been inside a church for many years, to let them be changed inside. 

 Is the practice of adoration unusual in Poland?

Katarzyna: No, it’s common—also on Central Square there is a small chapel [the 11th-century Church of St. Wojciech/Adalbert] where there is adoration from morning to night every day. [The editor observed at least a handful of people praying in the tiny chapel at random times of the day, while it was packed with around 40 faithful for the final evening Mass.]

What is different is that our community goes out onto the Square. We have our adoration at St. Mary’s every last Thursday of the month. There is Mass at 6.30 p.m. and then the adoration at 7.30 p.m. It is always in two languages, Polish and English, and sometimes also in French, Spanish, or Portuguese; it varies. We also have singing and a team of musicians. Every adoration has its own topic. Each year we have our own cycle—for example, one year we broke down the Lord’s Prayer into words and phrases, and prayed about them over the 12 months. This year was just, “Our Daily Bread”—we took the church’s set readings for the particular day as the focus of each adoration. We could sense the Holy Spirit guiding us. Also, near to the Blessed Sacrament we place a basket containing different quotations from the Bible in Polish and English. People who enter are able to take one, and often they receive exactly the word they need to hear. 

During the adoration we say the names of particular members of the community who are to go out onto the square and invite people to come into the church to meet Jesus, to pray. Then they go outside, normally in pairs. Everyone we invite is so different! Depending upon the season, we often encounter tourists from all over the world.

Krzysztof: For example, there was a situation when I spoke in English at one adoration and a girl came up to me afterwards saying that she was from Texas. She was in Kraków just for that day. In the morning she had seen there would be Mass at the Basilica at 6.30 p.m., so she came and stayed on for the adoration. After the adoration we have a get-together in the church hall, and she joined us for that. It feels great to know that there are such people who, even if they are only here for one day, are able to spend part of it with us.

Katarzyna: The Holy Spirit brings them. We hear some amazing testimonies!

What were some of your more memorable encounters?

 Katarzyna: Just last month I went out with a female friend and we saw five or six big guys with tattoos. I said, “Oh my gosh, they are scary, are you sure we are going to go up to them?” Then when we approached them, my friend noticed that one of them had the face of [19th-century Lebanese monk] St. Charbel Makhlouf tattooed on his forearm! It turned out that they were very Catholic. They said, “This is so amazing! We just came for a tourist visit, and you are inviting us to church!” They all came inside. 

 Or another story—there was a mother and daughter from Warsaw with a second daughter, who was living in Los Angeles. Even though she was tall and incredibly beautiful, she was lamenting, “I have money, a career—everything the world is telling me I should have. So why am I not happy?” One of our community invited them all into church, and this girl stayed there for a long time—the mother and sister came out much earlier. When this girl came out she was crying, her make-up flowing. She said she felt so good! She couldn’t believe the effect of something so simple as entering a church. It turned her whole life around. 

 Do you think it is easier for people who haven’t been to church for a long time—or ever—to come to something like the adoration, rather than a Mass where there is some expectation of participation?

 Katarzyna: It is the whole atmosphere. All the lights are out—there is only one, shining through the Blessed Sacrament. So that does give a sense of, “No one will actually see me here.” The darkness gives a sense of security, allowing people to come in and stay. 

 When we invite people inside their typical initial reaction is, “Where am I? What am I doing here?” But once they come closer, they often stay until the end. So it’s not us working any more—it’s God working.

 How does Christ in Old Town community organize itself?

 Katarzyna: We meet more regularly than once a month. We have preparatory meetings, such as to pray about the readings for the next adoration. Then we meet with our priest and share our thoughts. 

 Krzysztof: There is also a meeting for the people who will be going outside. They prepare by reading the portion of the Bible we will be meditating upon at the adoration. 

 Katarzyna: We also have get-togethers, like going into the mountains, just to have some fun. It’s not as if we pray all the time!

Does the community have a group structure?

Krzysztof: We vote for the leader, and there are people responsible for those who go outside, for finance, for social media. But everyone is very open and approachable.

How many people are involved in the organizational side?

Katarzyna: Over 50. With supporters who attend regularly, we would be around 100.

Krzysztof: At the first adoration in March 2012 we gathered at a side-altar dedicated to Pope John Paul II. There were 10 people, perhaps. Since then the numbers have grown, and we have moved to the main altar.

Katarzyna: Sometimes it is so packed you can’t find a seat.

Pope John Paul II was canonized as a saint in 2014. He was born Karol Wojtyła not far from Kraków and rose to become the city’s archbishop before his election to the papacy. Is there particular devotion to him here?

Krzysztof: Every day in all churches the last Holy Mass begins at 9:37 p.m. That is the time of John Paul II’s death.

Katarzyna: I used to travel a lot before the pandemic, and I always knew I was home arriving at Kraków John Paul II International Airport! Where in the world do you have an airport named after a saint? When he was elected pope in 1978, the authorities were listening to whatever you said by telephone. Letters were even opened—sometimes whole pages went missing. But still the message came through. People were so happy that they went out onto the streets. I find that amazing. These days it’s normal for people to get a text message—“Let’s meet in five minutes”—and you go. Back then there was no internet, no mobile phones. I couldn’t believe it when I saw photos of what happened here in Kraków when John Paul II was shot in Rome in 1981. The whole city came out onto the streets!

[Editor’s note: on 17 May 1981, four days after the assassination attempt, around half a million people silently marched through Kraków wearing white in solidarity and filled Central Square. Mass was served outside St. Mary’s Basilica. Brief archival footage may be viewed at: BIAŁY MARSZ - 17 maja 1981 r., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PziPHDuxReA.]

Krzysztof: This was when the Communists were seeking to stop people from attending Holy Mass, for example in Nowa Huta. The workers of Nowa Huta secretly created a large cross for the pope. Their message to the authorities was, “You cannot tell us what we can do and what we cannot do.” This is something very important to us. So when Pope John Paul II visited later, there were many thousands of people. Everyone wanted to go.

[Editor’s note: A large Kraków satellite town housing the Vladimir Lenin Steelworks, Nowa Huta was deliberately planned without a Catholic church. From the late 1950s, residents petitioned the authorities for a church to be built, with the support of then auxiliary bishop Karol Wojtyła. Police repeatedly removed a standing cross in Nowa Huta where the future pope hosted Masses, and he finally consecrated a church in the town in 1977. On his first pilgrimage to Poland as pope in 1979, John Paul II preached about the significance of the Nowa Huta cross: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19790609_polonia-mogila-nowa-huta.html.]

Do political opposition figures of that time, such as Lech Wałęsa, the leader of the Solidarity [Polish: Solidarność] trade union movement and first post-Communist president, also remain a source of inspiration in Poland?

Krzysztof: On the one hand, Lech Wałęsa can be seen as a great guy who was trying to save the Polish people from Communism. But at the same time, he basically collaborated with the Communist Party. A couple of years ago, our Institute of National Remembrance [Polish: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej], which collects historical documents, discovered that Wałęsa signed up to be a collaborator. He more or less denied that he collaborated—such as by saying that he didn’t know what he was signing—but this has cast a shadow over him.

Was this record of collaboration discovered when the relevant secret police archives were opened?

Katarzyna: No, it actually came to light by mistake. A senior Communist official died recently [General Czesław Kiszczak, interior minister 1981-89, d. 2015]. He left a wardrobe full of documents. His wife did not know what to do with them, so she tried to sell them.

Krzysztof: Then the Institute of National Remembrance noticed that this general’s papers were for sale and took them. Among them was Wałęsa’s signature as a collaborator passing information on co-workers inside the Gdańsk Shipyard to the Communist Party.

[Editor’s note: The records suggest that Wałęsa—code-named Bolek—enthusiastically provided information after signing a collaboration agreement in 1970. As he became more reluctant, the agreement was terminated in 1976, prior to the foundation of the Solidarity movement in 1980.]

The Catholic Information Agency’s 2021 report The Church in Poland found that the level of religious practice among young people halved over the previous 30 years, with 30 percent considering themselves regularly practicing Catholics [Kościół w Polsce, Katolicka Agencja Informacyjna, 2021, https://ekai.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Raport-Kosciol-w-Polsce-2021.pdf]. Do you see attitudes towards the church changing, especially among younger generations?

 Katarzyna: Well, in cities like Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, or Gdańsk, the Catholic Church has huge academic communities. Each church has its own academic community, where people meet outside their studies. Our [Christ in Old Town] community additionally has people who are working or taking care of kids, but if you go to the Dominicans or Franciscans, you will just find students, and those communities are huge. [The editor found the 5 p.m. Sunday Mass at the Franciscans’ church in downtown Kraków to be packed with many young people, some standing in the aisles, while the 11 a.m. Mass was less than full with a generally older congregation.]

Krzysztof: The Dominican community [in Kraków] has over 350 people, and that is just one church.

Katarzyna: During Advent, the first morning Mass there, at 6 a.m., is a special Mass in honor of the Virgin Mary. The whole church is dark, and everyone walks in holding candles. It is difficult to get inside, even at that hour of the morning. Everyone is squeezed in, and you may have to stand outside, where it is freezing. So you can see that even the academic portion of the church is growing. Churches sometimes even have a waiting list to join a particular community.

Krzysztof: If you go to the Dominicans in the middle of the week at 11 a.m. or 12 p.m., sometimes there will be a line of people waiting for two hours to go to confession. That’s normal.

Katarzyna: That’s Poland! I also love visiting Częstochowa—the main shrine to Mary in Poland [home to the renowned ancient icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa]. It is just an hour and a half from here. It doesn’t matter whether I go in the middle of the week or at the weekend—there are thousands of people there, of all ages. I find myself thinking, “It’s the 21st century, the media is telling us that the Church is dying… I don’t think so!” (Laughs.)

Krzysztof: After we had World Youth Day [international Catholic gathering attended by hundreds of thousands of young people] in Kraków in 2016, a lot more young people became open to the faith and began joining the church. They could see and relate to other people their own age coming from all over the world, which moved them to find out whether the Church could be something for them.

Does the fact that church attendance is still higher in Poland than in many neighboring countries make it easier for young people to feel comfortable there?

 Katarzyna: Yes, it’s easier to find like-minded people and to make friends, whereas my friends in America, for example, tell me they feel like they are against the tide; alone against the whole world. 

 Krzysztof: Also, compared with other countries, the churches in Poland are not closed. Whenever you have a free moment you can open the door and go there to pray. While I was in Rome in June I was trying to enter a church, but I was told that it was closed for four hours. That really shocked me!

 According to the Pew Research Center’s 2017 study “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” 75 percent of Poles said religious leaders influence politics, but only 31 percent believed that they should [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-europe]. Do you think some Polish politicians’ promotion of the Catholic Church and “traditional values” truly reflects popular sentiment?

 Krzysztof: We do not divide the country from religion. Our Constitution says that we originate from God. [Editor’s note: The preamble of Poland’s 1997 Constitution recognizes “both those who believe in God as the source of truth, justice, good, and beauty” and “those not sharing such faith but respecting those universal values as arising from other sources.” It also describes Polish culture as “rooted in the Christian heritage of the Nation and in universal human values.”] Nowadays, we have conservative, liberal, and ecological political parties, all with different programs. The liberal side argues that the church is not good for people, complains that it is stopping abortion and withholding LGBT rights. 

Katarzyna: On the one hand, that is what they are saying, but in the run-up to elections they shift to the center. They gather their whole family and take a beautiful picture alongside pictures of Jesus and Mary, and claim that they do not oppose the church.

That suggests they do need to reckon with significant religious sentiment among the electorate. Do you think that conservative politicians’ projection of personal faith is genuine?

Krzysztof: A few months ago I was at St. Anna’s [collegiate church of Kraków’s Jagiellonian University]. It was a normal, 1 p.m. Sunday Mass. I was standing at the back when the doors suddenly opened. Security guards came in and pushed people out of the way. Then our president [Andrzej Duda] entered with the first lady [Agata Kornhauser-Duda]. They stood praying in the back rows, went for communion, and then left.

Katarzyna: They are both from Kraków. Also, when he was elected, the first thing Duda did was to go to Częstochowa. Of course, on that occasion there were a lot of media and photos—if it was just for show or not, I don’t know. But incidents like this [Duda’s appearance at St. Anna’s] make me feel like he is not just doing it for show.

Do Poles’ comparatively conservative social attitudes therefore combine with animosity towards the European Union (EU)?

Both: No, no!

Krzysztof: Obviously the EU may not be a great place at the moment. It was founded with Christian values, on the principle of free movement of economic goods, and so on. Now they are trying to turn it into one big organization, while each country is totally different.

Katarzyna: Some other countries are also conservative. They should be able to make their own decisions—we don’t use the Euro, for instance.

Krzysztof: Having the złoty means that our central bank has greater flexibility to adjust interest rates. But we are part of and happy to be in the EU. We may have a different point of view on economic matters, but we are not going anywhere. The government would not try something like Brexit.

In 2019 a documentary film was released in Poland examining the issue of pedophilia within the local Catholic Church, Tell No One [Polish: Tylko nie mów nikomu]. Did this have an impact upon the Catholic community?

Katarzyna: I didn’t watch it. I prayed over it. Of course, it doesn’t matter where you go, these things are happening. There is the #MeToo movement—the Hollywood film stars who were abused by their producers—so it is in every profession. But I also know priests who are amazing—you can call them at midnight if your grandmother is passing away, and they will leave everything and come. They are the real shepherds. There are also priests who are dubious, but in the Gospels Jesus says there will be wolves in sheep’s clothing [Matthew 7:15]. It makes me sad to see this here in Poland, but looking around, it doesn’t make people leave the Church.

Krzysztof: If you are in the Church, you have faith—that kind of thing doesn’t affect you, basically. I’m not saying it is not true—it can be, obviously—but the media takes several cases and turns them into a spiral, saying everything is bad.

Does the Catholic Church remain strong in Poland thanks to its historical role preserving the nation in adversity?

Katarzyna: I think it has to do with history for sure. For 123 years we were a country that was not on the map [1795-1918]. Even though that was three generations, we preserved our language, we preserved our culture, and we preserved our Catholic faith. So even though we were nowhere on the map, we now have [20th-century saints] Faustina [Kowalska] and her devotion to Divine Mercy, [Maximilian] Kolbe. Poland has so many saints. I feel that they are taking care of this country, even though we argue and fall.