Crusader for Faith and Freedom

By Thomas A. Sancton

Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski: 1901-1981

He was a man who matched his own stern definition of a hero: someone willing "to live in toil, suffering, pain and sacrifice for years." Yet he was neither a political rabble-rouser nor a Christian martyr. Violence was abhorrent to him; indeed, his personal intercession helped prevent bloody clashes at more than one critical juncture in his nation's history. But no army of freedom fighters could have done more than Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski to wear down the all-embracing authority of Poland's atheistic Communist regime.

For more than three decades, the tall, big-boned prelate towered over the commissars as the most influential figure in Poland: spiritual leader of the nation's overwhelmingly (90%) Roman Catholic population, outspoken advocate of social and political rights, defiant symbol of Polish nationalism under the shadow of Soviet domination. When he died of abdominal cancer in Warsaw last week at the age of 79, he left behind the most powerful Catholic Church in the East bloc--and a nation whose political awakening has shaken the Communist world to its core.

The news of Wyszynski's death threw the whole nation into mourning, including, at least publicly, the leaders of the repressive Marxist regime that had once tried to gag him. Even the government press praised the fallen Cardinal as a "great patriot." While thousands of mourners filed past Wyszynski's flower-covered casket in Warsaw's St. Joseph's Church, Pope John Paul II, the Cardinal's countryman and longtime protege, sent a telegram to the Polish people from his Rome hospital bed, saying that he shared in their "pain and prayer."

The week had begun with some other troubling news. Two former Cabinet members under investigation for corruption--ex-Foreign Trade Minister Jerzy Olszewski, 60, and ex-Construction Minister Edward Barszcz, 53--committed suicide. Meanwhile, there were signs of a possible new wave of unrest as thousands of students marched to demand the release of political prisoners. Yet all other cares seemed to pale before the loss of the prelate whom one weeping woman described as "our strength through all these years--he was our shepherd."

The son of an impoverished nobleman who worked as a village schoolteacher and parish organist, Wyszynski was born in 1901 in the northeastern village of Zuzela and was ordained in 1924. He later wrote extensively on labor and rural problems and earned the affectionate nickname of the "worker priest." Active in the anti-Nazi resistance as an underground army chaplain in World War II, he was consecrated as the Bishop of Lublin in 1946. Two and a half years later, Pope Pius XII named him Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, an appointment that also made Wyszynski, at 47, the Primate of Poland--leader of the nation's church hierarchy.

His skills as a political infighter were put to the test in 1948 by the new Communist government's sweeping antireligious campaign, which was marked by the confiscation of church property and arrests of clergymen. Seeking to protect the church from such persecution, Wyszynski signed a coexistence agreement with the government in 1950 that was attacked by his critics. It restored some religious freedoms--on paper--but required the church to discipline priests for alleged antigovernment acts.

Within a year the government reneged on the deal, and when Wyszynski refused to denounce a bishop accused of political offenses, he was himself arrested in September 1953. In a characteristic gesture, he is said to have delayed the proceedings while he bandaged the hand of a secret police officer who had been bitten by the Primate's watchdog.

Wyszynski remained under house arrest for the next three years. The ordeal ended in 1956, when Wladyslaw Gomulka came to power after a national upheaval and released the Primate in a bid for popular support. Wyszynski responded with a public call for "national unity and calm" that helped restore order and averted a threatened Soviet invasion. There followed a period of precarious tactical cooperation between the Cardinal and the Communist leader. Then, as always, Wyszynski's goal was to push for more freedom without precipitating retaliation by the Communists that would cancel his gains.

Church-state relations became more stable after 1970 under Gomulka's successor, Edward Gierek, although Wyszynski continued to lash out against specific abuses. Following the bloody repression of the 1976 food price riots, for example, he denounced the government's persecution of the demonstrators.

In the climactic events of last year, Wyszynski supported the cause of striking Polish workers, although his early public calls for moderation led some militants to suspect him of siding with the government. He ultimately played a crucial mediating role, meeting with both Solidarity Union Leader Lech Walesa and Communist Party Boss Stanislaw Kania, and thereby helped stave off a possibly catastrophic confrontation. Said Walesa, who continually looked to Wyszynski for inspiration and advice: "The Cardinal's teachings brought us to the point we all dreamed about." Last week millions of Poles could say the same thing about a man who kept alive the dream of freedom and the flame of Christian faith in a Marxist state.

--By Thomas A. Sancton.

Reported by Richard Hornik/Vienna

With reporting by Richard Hornik/ Vienna

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