In the meantime, just shut up and tend to your parishioners.
Posted on 09/18/2017 10:25:34 AM PDT by ebb tide
There are signs of growing tension between the Polish government and Church hierarchy
Standing at an outdoor pulpit at Poland’s holiest Roman Catholic site, the nation’s top church leader delivered a message to the president and prime minister seated before him: Poland must show compassion to refugees and respect its own Constitution.
Archbishop Wojciech Polak’s words were understood by many Poles as criticism of the country’s conservative leaders.
The archbishop’s admonition, along with disapproving remarks from other religious leaders in the homeland of sainted Pope John Paul II, signal that the influential Catholic Church sees a need to correct the path of the country’s governing politicians.
The church’s reproach, while so far delivered diplomatically, raises the question of whether the ruling Law and Justice party could be at risk of losing some of its wide support among believers in a country where nine out of 10 citizens identify as Catholic.
“We must be open and compassionate and ready to help those most needy, weak and persecuted, migrants and refugees,” Polak said during a Mass celebrated at the Jasna Gora shrine in the city of Czestochowa to honour church-state relations. “We must respect the social order rather than destroy it thoughtlessly.”
Another prominent bishop, Tadeusz Pieronek, went further recently, accusing leaders of consciously “violating the Constitution” as they overhaul the judiciary system. He called it “villainy.”
Law and Justice party came to power in 2015 thanks in part to the support of the church. Parish priests in small towns and villages used their sermons to help the party in its campaign by praising the values it advocated.
So did Fr Tadeusz Rydzyk, a business-minded priest who runs an influential broadcasting network. The government subsidizes the network and Cabinet ministers often appear on its Radio Maryja station.
At the height of Europe’s migrant crisis, which came during Poland’s 2015 election campaign, Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski advocated anti-migrant attitude, saying migrants posed a threat because they might carry “parasites and protozoa,” a comment criticized for inciting xenophobia.
A 2016 visit from Pope Francis did little to budge the Polish authorities from their unyielding refusal to accept refugees or migrants. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, the mother of a priest, often stresses that Poland aids refugees financially and medically in centres outside of Europe, close to their homelands.
The church hierarchy stepped into politics again last week. With gentle language that nonetheless displayed displeasure, five bishops opposed the Polish government’s renewed demand for World War II reparations from Germany. Occupying German Nazis killed nearly a fifth of Poland’s population during the war and left the nation in ruins.
The bishops said that “ill-considered decisions and rash words” could easily destroy the hard-won reconciliation between Poland and Germany. They also recalled the help Germans gave to Poles during some of the darkest days of communism.
Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, who heads Poland’s bishops’ council, also waded into an ongoing political dispute over the ruling party’s attempts to overhaul the justice system. Gadecki thanked President Andrzej Duda for having vetoed two government-proposed bills that he found too extreme.
Warsaw University political scientist Anna Materska-Sosnowska said Polak’s unusually strong words at the shrine Mass could turn away some voters, but that the effect only will become evident during local elections next year and the parliamentary election scheduled for 2019.
But Kazimierz Kik, political analyst of the Jan Kochanowski University interpreted Polak’s words as a friendly reprimand and expression of concern that could paradoxically strengthen the public’s trust in the leaders.
The words show that “the church is with the government, not against it and warns it at the right moment against going too far into a conflict situation,” like the standoff with the EU over migrants, Kik said.
The question is, will the authorities heed the warning.
Some Poles don’t expect criticism from the church to cost the ruling party much support.
“People in small towns will keep listening to their local parish priests, the majority of whom praise the government,” Andrzej Kaminski, 77, a retired engineer said. “The church hierarchy is high and far away and the local priest is right there, with them.”
Excellent. Thank you for posting.
The Catholic Church is siding with the Muslims?
Guess they don’t want Poland to be a Catholic country anymore.
Sounds like the Bishop is being awful “rigid” here.
Christianity is not a death pact.
The Marxist ImPopester wants every country overrun.
Some Poles don’t expect criticism from the church to cost the ruling party much support.
“People in small towns will keep listening to their local parish priests, the majority of whom praise the government,” Andrzej Kaminski, 77, a retired engineer said. “The church hierarchy is high and far away and the local priest is right there, with them.”
Well here’s one Polish Catholic Priest that doesn’t agree....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2stNE3FXZO8
Notice the “pope” and his cardinals never chide the Saudis or other wide-open-spaces muslim countries for refusing to take in refugees.
Just western countries.
Thanks for the link; and I see that a huge number of Pollsh catholics in the audience agreed with him.
Invaders, not migrants.
Thanks to Matt for pointing out this video....
The Unconquered
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q88AkN1hNYM
Great video! Thanks for the link
Sean Bean has just become my favorite actor.
Too bad about Europe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCJiTNj9Ugk
In the meantime, just shut up and tend to your parishioners.
Sorry to hear this but the Polish people are too smart to follow their bishops into hell.
Please reread the article. The Polish Bishops are trying to do the right thing here. They have been known for standing up for the Faith as compared to others in the hiearchy.
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