Toward the Millennium

Poland's Roman Catholic Church has been planning for a decade to solemnly celebrate the nation's conversion to Christendom 1,000 years ago this year. Religious ceremonies are scheduled for many parts of the country, but the highlight will come May 3, the Polish national holiday, when thousands of Poles will journey to the Jasna Gora monastery in Czestochowa, home of the nationally cherished "Black Madonna." The Communist regime of Wladyslaw Gomulka, which has conducted a running feud with the church, is desperately anxious to avoid or at least diminish any public demonstration of Roman Catholic power in Poland. Last week, as the church began the first of its millennium celebrations, the Communists were busy creating every imaginable block and trying to convert the millennium into a purely secular "Polish state" occasion.

Adequate = Zero. Gomulka had already vetoed a visit to Czestochowa by Pope Paul VI to celebrate a millennial Mass, but now he seemed intent on keeping Catholics of all ranks--as well as others--away. Visas have been denied to the 150 foreign bishops, archbishops and cardinals invited to Czestochowa. Polish tourist offices in Europe and the U.S. have been blandly advising that visas will not be granted to Western pilgrims, who were originally expected to number 3,000,000. One explanation: "The country will already be too full of tourists." As for TV and newspaper coverage, some 125 Western newsmen and TV and radio teams have been refused entry, on the ground that the Polish state press and TV would provide "adequate coverage"--which to date has been zero.

The government also threw up a blizzard of obstacles to prevent Poles themselves from taking part. It has announced two top-drawer soccer matches for the big day on May 3, scheduled huge rallies and military parades for Gniezno and Poznan on the very days last week when official church celebrations got under way in those two cities. Trains to Czestochowa will be sporadic at best; many roads will be "under repair." The government has launched a massive propaganda campaign to discredit the church, calling Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, its tough, outspoken leader, a neo-fascist and a friend of Germany. Posters showing Nazi war crimes in Poland are going up everywhere, sarcastically captioned: "Grant and beg forgiveness"--a quote from the letter sent by Polish prelates last fall inviting German bishops to Czestochowa in a gesture of reconciliation. As an added touch, the government last week opened in Warsaw The Deputy, the Rolf Hochhuth play that attacks Pius XII for not fighting Nazism.

Blaring Music. All of this has hardly cowed the Poles. In Gniezno and Poznan last week, throngs of worshipers filled the churches and cathedrals to overflowing. Some 15,000 Poles defiantly raised their voices in prayer during an open-air Te Deum outside St. Mary's Cathedral in Gniezno, while government loudspeakers tried in vain to drown them out by blaring military music, low-flying helicopters churned up choking clouds of dust, and steel-helmeted troops with burp guns prowled the streets. En masse, the faithful followed Cardinal Wyszynski next day to the stations of the cross on Lech Hill, later heard him--in the presence of 63 other Polish bishops--celebrate a Mass for Poles abroad. Said Wyszynski: "We know that wherever Polish hearts beat, the millennium is celebrated."

Far from withering, the Catholic Church in Poland has actually grown in strength under the Communist policy of "pinprick" repressions. The country remains 96.5% Catholic, but more important is the fact that, after 20 years of universal state education, 60% of Poland's youth still claim to be "religious." The reasons, of course, lie deeper than the surface issues of clericalism v. atheism: Poland's history is so entwined with the Catholic Church that not even the Communists can extricate the two. The result is that Poland under Communism is undergoing something of a religious revival.

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