Poland Honors John Paul II with Monument in Warsaw

Polish servicemen stand during the unveiling ceremony of a giant cross monument in central Warsaw in honor of the late Pope John Paul II marking the 30th anniversary of the Polish-born pontiff's first visit to his homeland, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 6, 2009. The 30-foot or nine-meter, tall white granite cross stands on the site where John Paul II celebrated Mass in 1979 in then-communist Poland, inspiring the country's nascent pro-democracy groups and giving rise to the Solidarity freedom movement that helped topple communist rule in 1989. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

From The Associated Press

Poland on Saturday marked the 30th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's first pilgrimage to his homeland, unveiling a giant cross monument in central Warsaw in honor of the late Polish-born pontiff.

The 30-foot (nine-meter) tall white granite cross stands on the site where John Paul II delivered a Mass in 1979 in then-communist Poland. The sermon is credited by many with inspiring the country's nascent pro-democracy groups and giving rise to the Solidarity freedom movement that helped topple communist rule in 1989.

"We Poles know that the overthrow of communism did not start in 1989 but 10 years earlier, here on this square with the words of John Paul II," Warsaw mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz told the thousands of faithful who attended the ceremony and later Mass. "From today forward, in the heart of Poland and Warsaw ... will stand a cross that is a symbol of the faith, perseverance and hope."


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Newt Gingrich Conversion Details, Documentary on Pope John Paul II

The American Papist reports today that Newt Gingrich will be received into the Catholic Church on Sunday, March 29, in Washington, D.C.

He has also been working with his wife, Callista, on a documentary entitled "Nine Days That Changed The World." According to the film's website, the documentary will present Pope John Paul II's trip to Poland in June 1979 "as the cataclysmic event that changed a nation and changed the world." The film, expected to be released this Fall, "is meant to inspire and educate those who view it to understand the nature of freedom, to live in the truth, and to recognize that there is evil in the world that, with God’s help, must and can be defeated."

Thatcher's Historic Trip To Poland

We know now of the extraordinary, coordinated efforts that were underway in the 1980's, among Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, to free the enslaved peoples of Europe. Their efforts to foster a "new human relationship" in Polish society among church leaders, workers, farmers and intellectuals, received an enormous boost twenty years ago this month during a visit to Poland by Prime Minister Thatcher.

At a state banquet, Thatcher lashed out at General Wojciech Jaruzelski, stating that Poland's depressed economy would improve only after freedom and liberty were restored. She also insisted upon visiting the birthplace of the Solidarity Movement, the Gdansk Shipyard and the union's leaders. In an emotionally charged visit, Thatcher told 5,000 workers, "Nothing can stop you!" And indeed, nothing did.

The following June, Poland held the first free elections ever seen in the Communist bloc. Solidarity, with the help of two smaller parties, swept to power, and six months after that the Berlin Wall came crumbling down.

The following video recounts Thatcher's historic visit to Solidarity and the Polish shipyard workers:

East German Spy Service Aided Assassination Attempt on John Paul II

From Catholic World News

The notorious East German secret-police force, the Stasi, cooperated with Bulgarian colleagues in the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, according to a report published in Der Spiegel. The Stasi reportedly launched “one of the largest campaigns of misinformation in its history” in order to deflect suspicion from the Bulgarian masterminds.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• German weekly highlights role of the Stasi in attempt on John Paul II’s life (CNA)

In Loving Memory of Pope John Paul The Great on the Anniversary of His Death

On this third anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul the Great, it is an impossible task to pay adequate tribute to the colossus who dwelt among us.

His pontificate was the third longest in history, and in his twenty-six and half years on the Chair of Saint Peter, he presided over 9 consistories, 15 synods of bishops, appointed 2500 of the world’s 4200 bishops.

He authored 14 encyclicals, 14 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, 42 apostolic letters, 28 Motu proprio, and 5 books, in addition to hundreds of other messages and letters.

The Holy Father undertook 247 exhausting foreign and Italian pastoral visits, traveling a distance of 28 times the earth’s circumference, while welcoming an average of one million people per year to his weekly audiences and other meetings in the Vatican.

The extraordinary depth, breadth and volume of his teachings, such as his “theology of the body,” are so vast that the Church will be reflecting on them and absorbing them for generations to come.

When he began his pontificate, the Vatican had diplomatic relations with 85 countries. It now has diplomatic relations with over 175.

He played a pivotal role in bringing an end to the most murderous and tyrannical empire the world has ever known.

A poet, an actor, a laborer, a professor, priest, Archbishop, Cardinal and Pope, his life was bound up in mystical ways with the history of the twentieth century.

Many criticized him for being too "conservative;" others were critical that he did not enforce discipline and greater order in the Church, and impose sanctions on the dissidents and heterodox. Yet as we saw in the sorrowful days following his passing, his purpose was far beyond ecclesial administration. He sought to be the Vicar of Christ and shepherd to all the peoples of the world, carrying out the great commandment of Christ and following the example of the Apostles, to “make disciples of all nations.”

As a soul totally surrendered to God, his immeasurable accomplishment was to touch the hearts of the whole world with the love of Christ.

Like our Lord, he chose his words carefully for every nation and audience he addressed. His deep love and concern for America was, perhaps, most beautifully summed up at the close of his 1987 apostolic visit to the United States:

"As I go, I take with me vivid memories of a dynamic nation, a warm and welcoming people, a Church abundantly blessed with a rich blend of cultural traditions. I depart with admiration for the ecumenical spirit that breathes strongly throughout this land, for the genuine enthusiasm of your young people, and for the hopeful aspirations of your most recent immigrants. I take with me an unforgettable memory of a country that God has richly blessed from the beginning until now.

America the beautiful! So you sing in one of your national songs. Yes, America you are beautiful indeed, and blessed in so many ways:

• In your majestic mountains and fertile plains;

• In the goodness and sacrifice hidden in your teeming cities and expanding suburbs;

• In your genius for invention and for splendid progress;

• In the power that you use for service and in the wealth that you share with others;

• In what you give to your own, and in what you do for others beyond your borders;

• In how you serve, and in how you keep alive the flame of hope in many hearts;

• In your quest for excellence and in your desire to right all wrongs.
  
  Yes, America, all this belongs to you. But your greatest beauty and your richest blessing is found in the human person: in each man, woman and child, in every immigrant, in every native-born son and daughter.
  
  For this reason, America, your deepest identity and truest character as a nation is revealed in the position you take toward the human person. The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless ones.
  
  The best traditions of your land presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves. If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then America, defend life! All the great causes that are yours today will have meaning only to the extent that you guarantee the right to life and protect the human person:

• Feeding the poor and welcoming refugees;

• Reinforcing the social fabric of this nation;

• Promoting the true advancement of women;

• Securing the rights of minorities;

• Pursuing disarmament, while guaranteeing legitimate defense:

All this will succeed only if respect for life and its protection by the law is granted to every human being from conception until natural death.

Every human person – no matter how vulnerable or helpless, no matter how young or how old, no matter how healthy, handicapped or sick, no matter how useful or productive for society – is a being of inestimable worth created in the image and likeness of God. This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival – yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn.

With these sentiments of love and hope for America, I now say good-bye in words that I spoke once before: “Today, therefore, my final prayer is this: that God will bless America, so that she may increasingly become – and truly be – and long remain – ‘One Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all’”

May God bless you all. God bless America!"

Placido Domingo To Sing At Papal Mass In Washington

It has been announced that opera great and General Director of the Washington National Opera, Placido Domingo, will sing at a Mass to be celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI on April 17, during his first pastoral visit to the United States.

Domingo, who will sing Cesar Franck's "Panis Angelicus," was accorded the same honor and sang the same hymn for Pope John Paul II during his 1995 visit to New York and New Jersey. Video of Domingo singing at that Papal Mass follows:

CASTRO IS OUT, CHRIST IS IN

From New America Media

By Louis E.V. Nevaer

HAVANA – Catholic churches are full to capacity during mass, and the neighborhood Communist offices are empty.

One decade after Pope John Paul II traveled to Cuba – and negotiated an accommodation with Fidel Castro – the Vatican now speaks with the moral authority that few anticipated. That the Cuban people continue to move away from the Communist ideology has concerned Fidel Castro’s inner circle for more than five years, and it was instructive that Raul Castro, who has replaced his older brother Fidel as head of state, held his first meeting with a foreign dignitary with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state.

“He knows that the people have always believed in Christ, and never in Marx or Lenin or Fidel,” says a woman stepping out of the Church of the Sacred Heart along Father Felix Varela Avenue. “Raul wishes he had one one-hundredth of the authority of the pope.”

In the meeting between Raul Castro and Cardinal Bertone, it was the state that was deferential: Cuba’s state-run press, which rarely covers anything but official state institutions or Cuba’s Communist Party, printed a message from Cuba’s Catholic bishops. “In these moments our prayer is to God and the Virgin of Charity, our mother, patron of Cuba, for this newly renovated and inaugurated assembly council of state and new president to have the light from God to take decisive transcendental measures that we know should be progressive, but can begin to at once satisfy the anxieties and worries expressed by Cubans,” the bishops wrote.

The resurgence of the Catholic Church in this officially atheist state has reverberated throughout Cuba: Cubans are proud to display images of the Virgin of Charity, Santa Barbara, Saint Lazarus, and the Virgin of Guadalupe in their homes. Young men openly sport tattoos of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Masses offered at mid-morning on weekdays are standing-room only. A young man in his early twenties simply shrugs his shoulders when asked why he is at mass, and not at work, on a Monday morning. “Everyone needs hope and inner peace; coming to church gives me that,” he says. “Going to work is an empty gesture. After 49 years of failures, is my going to work going to make Fidel’s revolution succeed? Only a s--t-eater would believe that.”

Fidel Castro never outlawed religion, but he made life impossible for those who practiced their faith: priests were expelled, religious schools were banned, believers of any faith were not permitted to join the Communist party, and Cuba’s constitution extolled the virtues of atheism. Churches were closed throughout the country; Havana’s Sephardic Jews survived by renting their synagogue as a dance hall; Muslims were forced to leave (Cuba’s sole mosque is now a museum); and practitioners of “Santeria,” an Afro-Cuban faith with roots in West Africa were driven underground.

These draconian measures only intensified criticism of Fidel Castro’s regime, but he didn’t care – that is, of course, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Cuba desperately needed to court the goodwill and foreign aid of the European community. As former Soviet-sponsored regimes collapsed – from Poland to Slovakia, Hungary to Lithuania – Cuba quietly removed references to atheism from its Constitution, allowed religious orders of nuns to pursue “social assistance” endeavors, and lifted the ban on believers entering the Communist party.

These changes culminated in 1998, when John Paul II visited the island, and held mass in the Plaza de la Revolución, which was broadcast to the entire nation. There was no turning back. More and more churches were opened, priests trickled in, and Jews were allowed to receive sufficient assistance from Mexico’s Jewish community, the largest in Latin America, to reopen their synagogue. (Of the 50 remaining Sephardic Jewish families remaining in Havana, this past Sabbath was attended by fewer than a dozen people, not one younger than 60.) Fidel Castro also delighted in the Vatican’s position that the U.S. embargo was “immoral.”

This is not to say it has been a happy meeting of minds. No practicing believer holds a high position in government; an acute shortage of priests and nuns makes it impossible for millions of Cuban Catholics to practice their faith; Communist officials have resisted opening long-closed churches; teachers ridicule their students who admit attending church.

Despite these obstacles, churches have filled up – while Communist offices have emptied out.

After the revolution, every neighborhood included a Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, known as CDRs, usually comprised of “little old ladies” who snitched on the goings-on to the authorities. This month, however, one third of the CDRs in the Vedado and Habana Centro neighborhoods are empty. One woman in her 70s nonchalantly explains that at her age, “getting right with God is more important than being right with Fidel.” She explains that she simply reported that there was nothing suspicious on her block, and preferred to spend time praying at church.

In this manner, social power has drifted from the state to the church, and this has not been lost on Communist authorities. Catholic churches increasingly provide social services, from offering space for Alcoholic Anonymous meetings to conducting parenting classes for new mothers. Some are even doubling up as health centers, making sure children and the elderly get sufficient calories.

As one woman explains, “In theory healthcare is free,” but “only if you pay bribes.” The reality of medical care in Cuba is that “at the clinic, you show up and they can’t see you for months, unless you pay off the person who makes the appointments. Then the tests the doctor orders won’t be ready, unless you pay a bribe to the technician. And if x-rays are involved, that’s another bribe. Then the pharmacy won’t give you your prescription – unless another bribe is paid, so the ‘free’ medical care ends up costing two or three months’ salary paid out in bribes.”

The Catholic Church has offered frustrated and disillusioned Cubans a way out. “The Church does not impose, but proposes,” Cardinal Bertone told Italian reporters covering his recent meeting with Raul Castro. “We do hope for some openness, because nothing is impossible.”

And curiously enough, the first person Raul Castro invited for a state visit was Pope Benedict.

France Dies, The Dauphin Speaks

Prince Jean d'Orleans, Duc de Vendome

From The Brussells Journal

Jean d'Orléans, Duke of Vendôme, is the son of Henri, Count of Paris, one of the two major pretenders to the French throne, the other being Louis de Bourbon. Jean d'Orléans is therefore the Dauphin, the heir apparent from the House of Orléans.

While some insist Louis is the true King of France, and others take the side of Henri, I think most will agree on the validity of this message from Jean d'Orléans, subsequent to the recent vote in Versailles:

Does the Europe they offer us correspond to the wishes of the French and European peoples? Does it respond, in its projected form, to the aspirations of young people in search of meaning? I have traveled a great deal, these past ten years, in France and in Europe. Not as a politician seeking a term of office, but as a citizen attentive to the everyday life of his compatriots, and concerned about the destiny of France and of this continent. I have taken the time to listen and I know - because we have discussed it together - that many Frenchmen do not understand where they are being led. This incomprehension creates anxiety throughout the land and confusion in the young. France is not bored, she is worried.

The French people tried to express it, when they were permitted to. In 2005, they rejected, through a referendum, the constitutional treaty that was submitted to them. This time, they will not be allowed to voice their opinion on a document that repeats the essential points that they had rejected. The Treaty of Lisbon provides for a president of the European Union and a vice-president in charge of foreign affairs. It extends the powers of the Union in numerous areas, to the detriment of the States. It assures the preeminence of European law over the laws of the nations. [...]

I am 42. I was 13 when John-Paul II became Pope. I belong to the generation of young persons who lived in step with this Pope of modern times. We saw him accelerate the fall of the Soviet Union, through the strength of his words and his actions. That empire, that was thought to be unshakable, was built on a Utopia. The bureaucracy that governed it disdained the human and spiritual exigencies. It promised men a material happiness that would never replace their profound aspirations. It forced them to worship idols, that they demolished as soon as they could. The Soviet Union was founded on a lie, at least by the omission of the cultural roots of the people whom they wanted to subjugate to their laws.

Because I am attached to Europe, like the majority of those of my generation, I want it to be spared from this dangerous presumption. The Union is too often ignorant of the culture and riches of the countries it wants to enfold. Even though it is responsible to no one, the Court of Justice imposes on the States its own jurisprudence. European law consecrates the power of a technocracy that desires to regulate people's lives in the smallest detail. Now the current Pope, Benedict XVI, sent a forceful reminder last year: "You cannot hope to construct a real common house if you neglect the very identity of the peoples of our continent." And this identity "consists of values that Christianity helped to forge."

This obvious fact did not convince the writers of the charter of fundamental rights, annexed to the Treaty. No reference, in the text, to the Christian roots of our Europe. Even though the Union says it is "conscious of its spiritual and moral heritage", the wording is vague enough to allow many interpretations. Anyway, it is enough to read it to understand: the inspiration of this charter is basically individualistic. It dissolves the natural solidarities and communities, just as the Treaty submitted to the French Parliament dissolves European nations. Can we really believe that this is what young Europeans want? If we want it to resist the storms, we must found Europe on something more solid. Not on a Utopia, but on Truth.

Remembering Father Jerzy Popieluszko on the Anniversary of His Death

On October 19, 1984, a frail, young priest was savagely beaten and drowned by government security agents in the woods of rural Poland. The brutal death of this holy priest, carried out in the dark of night, captured the attention of the world, and his martyrdom is increasingly seen as a sacrifice leading not only to the resurrection of his own country as a free and independent nation of Christian people, but a bloody sacrifice redeeming all enslaved European peoples from the Baltic to the Urals.

Father Jerzy Popieluszko was born in 1947 on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, in the village of Okopy near Suchowola. His parents were farmers, and Popieluszko, like most young Poles, grew up with a profound love for the Church and a mystical love for a country whose history, culture, music and poetry are one with the Church. But it was also a time when the Church’s very existence in Poland was challenged; first with naked terror in the fifties, and then unrelenting administrative pressure in the 1960’s. As a high school student, Popieluszko kept secret his intention to become a priest for fear that the results of his examinations would be altered if his secret were known.

In 1965 Poland was celebrating its 1000 years of Christianity. In response to the festivities, the government pressured priests to form a schismatic National Catholic Church; they banned religious instruction in schools, taxed churches and seminaries, and severely restricted foreign travel for clergy. It was in that year also, that Jerzy Popieluszko entered the seminary. However, as part of the government’s campaign against the Church, he and his entire class were conscripted into the Army. Serving in an indoctrination unit in Bartoszyce, Popieluszko came to know in his own body the evil of a godless state. When it was discovered that he was carrying a Rosary, he was ordered to throw it to the ground and stamp on it. He refused, was badly beaten, and spent a month in a punishment cell. On another occasion he was ordered to remove a medal of Our Lady that he had worn since receiving it as a gift for his First Communion. Again he refused and was ordered to stand in the rain, barefoot, for many hours. These repeated punishments were endured quietly and bravely, but had a long-term effect on his health.

Finally resuming his seminary studies, he was seen as ordinary, frail, and “not spectacular,” but was ordained by Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski on May 28, 1972. By 1978 his Army punishments were taking a toll and he collapsed while saying Mass. To assist his recovery, Popieluszko was assigned to a parish attached to a university where he served as chaplain to medical students, and eventually became the chaplain to the nurses and doctors of Warsaw. In this role, Father Popieluszko’s courage again came to the attention of the authorities during a Papal Mass said by John Paul II during his first visit to Poland after becoming Pope. According to Father Peter Groody, “A letter was being taken to the Pope by three young girls during the Offertory procession. The letter was taken from them by the Secret Police. Father Jerzy saw this and jumped a barrier, retrieved the letter and gave it back to the girls.”

When he was transferred to St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in May 1978, the students, nurses and doctors moved with him. While serving at that parish, Father Popieluszko was asked to become chaplain to the steel works in Warsaw at about the time of the first Solidarity strikes. Father Jerzy stayed with the workers night and day, heard confessions, offered Mass, and became the spiritual director to Lech Walesa who would ultimately lead the Solidarity Union and serve as President of a free Poland. It was during these years when the “not so spectacular seminary student” found his voice, acquired a new eloquence and charisma, and became the spiritual foundation for a peaceful revolution that would eventually change the world. In uniting himself totally with the persecuted, suffering, faithful people of Poland, Popieluszko united himself with the suffering of Christ that continues through His Mystical Body. His priesthood took on new meaning and he became, as never before, an alter Christus in the eyes of the people he served.

After the imposition of martial law, Father Jerzy began a monthly “Mass for the Fatherland” that was attended by tens of thousands of Poles who packed the seats inside and surrounded the church outside listening to the young priest over loudspeakers. His message echoed that of the great Polish Pope in Rome: “Vanquish evil with good,” he implored. He also made clear that people of faith have a moral duty to resist evil, asking, “Whose side will you take? The side of good or the side of evil? Truth or falsehood? Love or hatred?

Father Popieluszko asked the people “to include God in the difficult and powerful problems of the country” and he rebuked “the abuse of human rights and freedom of conscience."

Like so many of Poland’s great freedom fighters, he compared the sufferings of Poland to those of Christ: “The trial of Jesus goes on forever. It continues through his brothers. Only their names, their faces, their dates, and their birth places change.” Like the Pope he loved, Popieluszko knew that fear lay at the root of his country’s enslavement. He said, “If truth becomes for us a value, worthy of suffering and risk, then we shall overcome fear – the direct reason for our enslavement."

When in May 1983 a student, Grzegorz Przemyk, was brutally murdered by the Security Police, Father Popieluszko spoke boldly about the outrages being carried out against the people of Poland. Referring to the use of water cannons and a raid on a Franciscan Convent, he said “this was too little for Satan. So he went further and committed a crime so terrible that the whole of Warsaw was struck dumb with shock. He cut short an innocent life. In bestial fashion he took away a mother’s only son.” He concluded by saying “This nation is not forced to its knees by any satanic power. This nation has proved that it bends the knee only to God. And for that reason we believe that God will stand up for it.”

For his May 1982 Mass for the Fatherland, Father Popieluszko composed a new Litany to Our Lady of Czestochowa:

Mother of those who place their hope in Solidarity, pray for us.
Mother of those who are deceived, pray for us;
Mother of those who are betrayed, pray for us.
Mother of those who are arrested in the night, pray for us.
Mother of those who are imprisoned, pray for us.
Mother of those who suffer from the cold, pray for us.
Mother of those who have been frightened, pray for us.
Mother of those who were subjected to interrogations, pray for us.
Mother of those innocents who have been condemned, pray for us.
Mother of those who speak the truth, pray for us.
Mother of those who cannot be corrupted, pray for us.
Mother of those who resist, pray for us.
Mother of orphans, pray for us.
Mother of those who have been molested because they wore your image, pray for us.
Mother of those who are forced to sign declarations contrary to their conscience, pray for us.
Mother of mothers who weep, pray for us.
Mother of fathers who have been so deeply saddened, pray for us.
Mother of suffering Poland, pray for us.
Mother of always faithful Poland, pray for us.

We beg you, O mother in whom resides the hope of millions of people, grant us to live in liberty and in truth, in fidelity to you and to your son. Amen

Michael Kaufman, the New York Times’ Warsaw Bureau Chief recognized the courage, audacity and importance of Popieluszko’s message when he wrote: “Nowhere else from East Berlin to Vladivostok could anyone stand before ten or fifteen thousand people and use a microphone to condemn the errors of state and party. Nowhere, in that vast stretch encompassing some four hundred million people, was anyone else openly telling a crowd that defiance of authority was an obligation of the heart, of religion, manhood, and nationhood.”

Among the tens of thousands of Poles listening to the voice of the brave, young priest were government agents who recognized that their position and privilege were threatened by the truth being powerfully proclaimed.

In 1983 the persecution of Father Popieluszko became routine. He was frequently called to police headquarters for interrogations, spent many nights in prison, his car was vandalized, his apartment was broken into, and the authorities even planted subversive literature and bomb making materials in his apartment.

During these trials, the Holy Father asked aides why the Church in Poland was not providing greater support and protection for the priest. To show his own solidarity, the Pope sent Father Popieluszko his own Rosary.

On October 13, 1984 there was an unsuccessful attempt on his life. Father Jerzy and his driver were traveling the Gdansk-Warsaw road when something was thrown at his car that would have caused it to crash. The driver swerved the car and avoided what could have been a fatal “accident”.

Despite warnings that there could be “serious consequences” if he preached in the northern town of Bydgoszcz a week later on October 19, 1984, he celebrated Mass and instead of preaching led the people in a meditation on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. His conclusion to the reflections were his last public words:

"In order to defeat evil with good, in order to preserve the dignity of man, one must not use violence. It is the person who has failed to win on the strength of his heart and his reason who tries to win by force… Let us pray that we may be free from fear and intimidation, but above all from lust for revenge and violence."

Government security agents who are believed to have been in that congregation followed the priest and his driver for about an hour on the return journey to Warsaw. On a lonely stretch of road they stopped the car, arrested, gagged and bound the driver and put him in the unmarked police car. Father Popieluszko asked, “Gentlemen, what are you doing?”

According to Father Groody:

“The ‘police’ beat him senseless with clubs and their fists and threw him into the boot of their car and drove off. Father Jerzy recovered consciousness and began to shout and bang on the boot of the car. They stopped to gag him but Father Jerzy managed to escape. He was recaptured and again beaten with clubs. A second time he regained consciousness and this time the officers tied him with ropes around his neck and ankles in such a way that if he moved his feet, the rope would tighten around his neck. They also stuffed his mouth with material and secured it with sticking plaster, which also covered his nose thus restricting his breathing even more. The senior officer ordered that stones should be tied to his feet and returned him to the car boot. They then drove to a dam on the Wisia River where they removed Father Jerzy from the boot and threw him into the water. Forensic experts later stated that at this point he may have still been alive.

The body of Father Popieluszko was retrieved ten days later from the Wloclawek Reservoir. The body was covered with deep wounds. His face was unrecognizable, his jaw, nose, mouth and skull were smashed. He was identified by his brother from a birthmark to the side of his chest. One of the doctors who performed the post mortem said that he had never seen such violent injuries. There was blood in his lungs and his kidneys and intestines were reduced to pulp.”

The funeral of Father Popieluszko was attended by nearly a half million people. Pope John Paul II and leaders from throughout the world have prayed at his grave, and on February 8, 1997 his cause for beatification was introduced.

On the twenty-first anniversary of Father Popieluszko’s murder, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe stated:

“It is right and just to commemorate the death of Father Jerzy Popieluszko. Father Popieluszko was a true, modern-day, Polish hero and martyr, who died in the struggle for freedom in his beloved Poland. His courageous support for Solidarity in the face of oppression is an inspiration to all freedom loving people around the world. It is a consolation to all of us in Poland today, especially to Father Popieluszko’s church, parishioners, family and friends, that his sacrifice will be remembered forever and that his flame will burn brightly in the pantheon of Polish heroes.”

Born on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, Father Popieluszko wholeheartedly took up the heavy cross set before him, and in so doing, his life became a sermon and sacrifice that has freed nations and inspired all men who love truth and freedom.

Father Popieluszko, your “death has opened our eyes, the eyes of our hearts, our minds and our faith.” Pray for us, O Holy Servant of God!

Feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa

Queen of Poland

Prayer (From the Feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa, August 26)

Almighty and merciful God, you have wondrously given a constant protection to the Polish nation in the Blessed Virgin Mary and adorned her sacred picture at Jasna Gora with unusual veneration of the faithful. Graciously grant that, having such aid in the battles of our life, we may be victorious over our enemy at the moment of death. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

In 1683 the valiant Polish King Jan Sobieski marched to the gates of Vienna and saved western civilization from being overrun by Moslem hordes. In his message informing Pope Innocent XI that Christendom had been saved, the King wrote, "I came, I saw, God conquered." That sums up very well a thousand years of miraculous Polish history.

In what is arguably one of the most indefensible landscapes in the world, the Polish people have been overrun many times, but the soul of Poland has never been conquered. Their fortress is union with Christ in a nation under the Queenship of His Blessed Mother.

The Polish nation led the overthrow of the most murderous, totalitarian regime of all time. Pope John Paul II termed it a "victory of fidelity": "fidelity to Christ crucified in the moment of your own crucifixion"; fidelity to the Holy Spirit "who led you through the darkness"; fidelity to "Peter's successors and to the successors of the apostles, the bishops"; and "fidelity to the nation which is particularly expressed in solidarity with the persecuted and ... those who seek the truth and love freedom."

The Holy Father charged his countrymen with the task of building a free Church "on the basis of what you have brought to maturity during the years of trial." Today Poland stands alone among the nations of what was once Christendom, in rejecting a new slavery of secular humanism, materialism and hedonism. Forged in the fire of the twentieth century, will she once again be the instrument God uses to save western civilization?

I have been moved to learn about Poland and its role in salvific history, by Pope John Paul II, by the life and martyrdom of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, and by extraordinarily good and loving Polish people who became my best friends when I lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. Those friends and I confronted evil, and with prayer, perseverance, solidarity and hope, we watched as "God conquered."

On this day, commemorated by a Polish language Mass and Jersey City's Polish Festival, I send my love and very best wishes to the Committee for the Defense of Our Lady of Czestochowa Church and all those who helped us. Sto Lat!