GERALDINE FAGAN
The Catholic Church’s contribution to the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989 is commonly identified with the 1978 election of Polish Pope John Paul II and his subsequent ability to galvanize massive support during jubilant visits to his homeland. Not forgotten in Poland, however, is that this effort was far more protracted and tragic.1
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński fought Communist plans to subdue the Catholic Church in Poland much earlier. In May 1953 he rejected a decree introducing state control over clerical appointments, telling then Polish government leader Bolesław Bierut:
We will follow the voice of our apostolic vocation and our priestly conscience, walking with inner peace and the knowledge that we have not given any grounds for persecution, that suffering becomes our lot only for the cause of Christ and the Church of Christ. We must not lay the things of God on the altars of Caesar. Non possumus!2
Non possumus [Latin: “We cannot”] recalled both the apostles’ inner compulsion to proclaim the Gospel expressed in Acts 4:20—“For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard”—and the words of a Christian martyred in North Africa in 304 AD: “Sine dominico non possimus” [Latin: “We cannot do without Sunday.”]
Arrested in September 1953, Cardinal Wyszyński was detained in various former monasteries across Poland for three years. During this time, he formulated two church responses to government anti-religious policy:
- A renewed Pledge of Jasna Góra, recalling that of Polish King Jan II Kazimierz entrusting Polish kingdoms to the Virgin Mary as their queen in 1656. The king’s pledge was made in gratitude for Swedish forces’ failure in their siege of the monastery of Jasna Góra, home to the renowned ancient icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa. Cardinal Wyszyński’s new vows called for Poles to “live in sanctifying grace and be a temple of God,” including safeguarding marriage, upholding economic justice, and rejecting abortion.3 They were proclaimed by a vast crowd of pilgrims at Jasna Góra in August 1956, two months before Cardinal Wyszyński’s release from detention.4
- The Great Novena, conceived as the implementation of the renewed Pledge over the course of nine years’ spiritual preparation for the thousand-year anniversary of Poland’s formal adoption of Christianity in 966 AD. Each year had a motto dedicated to a particular value, such as “Youth faithful to Christ” (1962-3) and “May you love one another” (1963-4).5
In June 1957 Cardinal Wyszyński further announced the visitation of a copy of the icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa to all Polish parishes. During the 1966 millennium celebrations, police seized—or “arrested”—this copy of the icon three times. Church representatives twice managed to return the image to the pilgrimage trail, but on the third occasion it was confined to Jasna Góra, where it remained until 1972. In response, the faithful began to conduct processions with images of the icon’s empty frame: according to the later reminiscences of one Catholic, “the significance of the empty frame was all the greater.”6
Cardinal Wyszyński was also instrumental in the consecration of Karol Wojtyła as archbishop of Kraków, and thus to his later papacy. Days after his election in October 1978, Pope John Paul II insisted to Cardinal Wyszyński that he “would not be on Peter’s chair were it not for your faith which did not retreat before prison and suffering. Were it not for your heroic hope, your unlimited trust in the Mother of the Church! Were it not for Jasna Góra, and the whole period of the history of the Church in our country, together with your ministry as Bishop and Primate!”7
Cardinal Wyszyński was also an authority for Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko, a chaplain to the independent Solidarity [Polish: Solidarność] trade union. Born in 1947 into a village household near Białystok in northeastern Poland, Fr. Jerzy was ordained by Cardinal Wyszyński in 1972. By 1980 he was serving at St. Stanisław Kostka Church in Warsaw, whose parish included the large steelworks of Nowa Huta. With the emergence of Solidarity that August, local workers sought Catholic pastoral support at St. Stanisław’s. Fr. Jerzy responded to their request, repeatedly visiting the steelworks for Mass and confessions.
Following the Communists’ December 1981 declaration of martial law and subsequent crackdown on the Solidarity movement, Fr. Jerzy further organized material assistance to the families of jailed workers. From February 1982 he began monthly “Masses for the Homeland” [Polish: Msze za Ojczyznę] at St. Stanisław’s, which continue to this day. Fellow priest Fr. Marek Starowieyski recalls that, at moments of great tension during the martial law period, Fr. Jerzy would often cite Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”8 This has since come to serve as his motto.
Deeming Fr. Jerzy a threat, the Communist authorities kept him under close surveillance and in September 1983 opened a criminal investigation against him. In July 1984 Fr. Jerzy was charged with “violating freedom of conscience” by delivering sermons containing “political content defamatory to the authorities,” including accusations that the authorities “use falsehood, hypocrisy and lies, destroy human dignity through anti-democratic legislation, and deprive society of freedom of thought and action.” By this time, tens of thousands were attending Fr. Jerzy’s monthly Masses for the Homeland, filling the streets surrounding his church.
On 13 October 1984 a rock was thrown through Fr. Jerzy’s car window as he was returning to Warsaw from Gdańsk, but the skillful response of his driver averted an accident. On 19 October Fr. Jerzy visited a parish in the city of Bydgoszcz at the invitation of local workers. After serving evening Mass, he told them: “A Christian’s obligation is to stand by the truth even if it might cost them dearly. And you need to pay for the truth. Only chaff costs nothing. For the grain of truth, one sometimes needs to pay.” On the road back to Warsaw that night, Fr. Jerzy and his driver were abducted by three members of the Służby Bezpieczeństwa or secret police. The driver managed to escape and raise the alarm, and vigils were held for Fr. Jerzy’s safe return.
Eleven days later, however, Fr. Jerzy’s battered and bound corpse was recovered from the River Vistula. In February 1985 the three secret police officers—whose testimony provided details of Fr. Jerzy’s abduction and killing—were sentenced, along with a superior, to between 14 and 25 years in jail. These terms were later reduced to between four and 15 years, however, and who ordered the murder remains a mystery.
An estimated 800,000 people attended Fr. Jerzy’s funeral at St. Stanisław’s on 3 November 1984, with many viewing from the rooftops of nearby buildings.9 Based upon an exhibition organized the same month by Fr. Jerzy’s fellow parish priest, Fr. Teofil Bogucki, a museum in the crypt of the church contains many original artifacts from Fr. Jerzy’s personal life and involvement in the Solidarity movement.
In June 2010 Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko was beatified—a milestone towards Catholic sainthood—in Warsaw. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, who died in 1981, was also beatified in Warsaw in September 2021.
Notes:
1 Unless otherwise stated, the source is the Museum of the Blessed Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko, Warsaw, Poland
2 Ewa Czaczkowska, “Kardynał Wyszyński. Gdy Cezar siada na ołtarzu, mówimy nie! Non possumus,” Wszystko Co Najważniejsze, 30 January 2014, https://wszystkoconajwazniejsze.pl/ewa-czaczkowska-kardynal/.
3 The Pledge of Jasna Góra, World History Commons, https://worldhistorycommons.org/pledge-jasna-gora.
4 A photo of the crowd may be viewed at: https://historia.interia.pl/kartka-z-kalendarza/news-26-sierpnia-1956-r-na-jasnej-gorze-odnowiono-sluby-jasnogors,nId,1489638.
5 “A biographical exhibition presenting the figure of Stefan Wyszyński prepared by the IPN’s National Education Office,” Institute of National Remembrance, 10 September 2021, https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/8846,A-biographical-exhibition-presenting-the-figure-of-Stefan-Wyszynski-prepared-by-.html.
6 Anna Niedźwiedź, The Image and the Figure: Our Lady of Częstochowa in Polish Culture
and Popular Religion, Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press 2010, 174-6.
7 “Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to the People of Poland,” The Holy See, 23 October 1978, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19781024_polacchi.html.
8 Fr. Marek Starowieyski, “Nie daj się zwyciężyć złu, ale zło dobrem zwyciężaj,” Radio Watykańskie, 31 August 2008,
https://www.archivioradiovaticana.va/storico/2008/08/31/nie_daj_się_zwyciężyć_złu,_ale_zło_dobrem_zwyciężaj/pol-227829.
9 Footage of Fr. Jerzy’s funeral may be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-42tpXiNXFI.
Geraldine Fagan is the editor of the East-West Church Report.
