A Nation Mourns a Martyred Priest

By John Kohan

Justice is promised, but the regime is implicated

A cloud of thick gray smoke and the pungent scent of burning wax wafted above the jumble of gravestones in Warsaw's Powazki Cemetery last Thursday. It was All Saints' Day, and thousands of Poles had crowded into the historic burial ground to light candles in memory of the dead. This year the solemn tradition had a special poignancy. The photograph of a frail, youthful man in clerical collar had been nailed to a tree near an unmarked plot that has become the unofficial monument to those who died in the months following the imposition of martial law in December 1981. The inscription beneath the picture read KILLED BY SECURITY FORCES. For the mourners who added their candles to countless others flickering under the makeshift memorial, no other identification was necessary.

When Father Jerzy Popieluszko, 37, was abducted on a lonely stretch of road outside the city of Torun on Oct. 19, many Poles refused to believe that the popular priest could have been the victim of gangland-style violence. During the grimmest hours of military rule, Popieluszko's eloquence and passionate dedication had offered hope to many Poles that the spirit of Solidarity, the banned trade-union movement, would somehow survive. But each passing day brought new revelations of involvement by the secret police in a plot to silence Popieluszko. Hope for the priest's safe return soon gave way to the suspicion that hard-line factions in the regime were trying to cover up the truth about the disappearance. The awful reality broke on Tuesday, when police frogmen found the priest's body in a reservoir on the Vistula River, 85 miles northwest of Warsaw.

Within minutes of the official announcement of Popieluszko's death, thousands of Poles massed in front of the twin-towered church of St. Stanislaw Kostka, the parish in northern Warsaw where the priest had worked during the last four years of his life. Inside the church, Father Feliks Polejewski announced at the end of Mass that "Father Jerzy is among the blessed today." For a moment, all emotion seemed to drain from the congregation, which had kept up a determined vigil for eleven days. Then came the sobs, as the crowd haltingly began to sing a patriotic anthem. Reciting the Lord's Prayer, Father Polejewski gently emphasized the words, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Three times he repeated the words "we forgive." Said the priest: "He did not die because he thought of himself but because he thought of others. He died for love and for the truth."

Fearing that the tragic news might spark street demonstrations and clashes with police, church leaders and Solidarity activists appealed for calm. During his weekly audience at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II urged his countrymen not to disturb "the great moral eloquence of this death." Former Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa asked Poles to observe "the silence of mourning." Said he: "They wanted to kill, and they killed not only a man, not only a Pole, not only a priest. They wanted to kill the hope that it is possible in Poland to avoid violence in political life."

On Saturday, 400,000 mourners gathered for an open-air funeral Mass in front of St. Stanislaw Kostka Church, all but enveloping the building and spilling down the neighboring streets. For the first time since the military crackdown, Walesa addressed an enormous crowd. At the very mention of his name, Poles began to cheer and flash the V-for-victory sign. "We swear that we will never forget his death," Walesa declared. "A Poland that has such priests has not lost and shall never be lost."

As bells tolled, Popieluszko's plain wooden coffin was carried into the churchyard and lowered into a brick-lined grave. Someone had removed the heart-shaped bouquet with the letter S (for Solidarity) set in white against a background of red carnations, which had adorned the casket. But after the funeral, thousands of Poles marched toward the city center carrying Solidarity banners. Riot police deployed along the way appeared to be under orders to keep their distance; there were no reports of violence to mar the day of mourning.

The authorities had wanted Popieluszko to be buried in his native village of Okopy, a hamlet 20 miles from the Soviet border, but they yielded to the church's request for a Warsaw funeral. In a further concession, the regime allowed a church-appointed doctor and lawyer to observe the autopsy. Government officials insisted that there would be no plea bargaining with the secret-police captain and two lieutenants who were arrested soon after the priest disappeared. They will be tried for kidnaping and murder, a charge that carries a possible death sentence. At week's end the official investigation had reached even higher into the Interior Ministry, which controls the secret police: two colonels were arrested and a general was suspended.

Despite the government's measures to defuse tension, there was widespread suspicion of high-level complicity in the tragedy. Even when Popieluszko was a young seminary student serving a mandatory term in the military, he had spent time in the stockade for conducting prayer services. The priest was so dedicated in carrying out his duties at his first Warsaw parish, the historic Church of St. Anne, that his superiors feared for his health and transferred him to what they thought would be a less demanding post. But as soon as Popieluszko arrived at the parish of St. Stanislaw Kostka, he took on the job of chaplain to the huge Huta Warszawa steelworks, winning over hard-drinking mill hands with his friendly, unassuming manner. In the pulpit, Popieluszko became an eloquent defender of Solidarity, and after the military crackdown his monthly "Mass for the fatherland" became a rallying point for the opposition.

Popieluszko's name figured prominently on a list of 69 priests that the regime accused of crossing the line from the church into politics. When police claimed to have discovered explosives and anti-Communist literature in Popieluszko's apartment, the priest declared that the officers knew exactly where to look because they had planted the evidence. The authorities did not press charges against Popieluszko but continued the campaign by other means. Under the pseudonym Jan Rem, Government Press Spokesman Jerzy Urban wrote a scathing article in the weekly Tu i Teraz calling Popieluszko a "modern-day Rasputin." The priest, he said, held "hate sessions" in his church.

There was widespread speculation that the kidnaping and murder had been carefully planned by hard-liners to discredit Jaruzelski and his Interior Minister, General Czeslaw Kiszczak. For many Poles the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together too neatly. Secret Police Captain Grzegorz Piotrowski, the apparent ringleader of the kidnapers, was identified last week as an officer in the Interior Ministry section that monitors the activities of religious groups in Poland. His two lieutenants were recognized almost immediately by Popieluszko's driver, who had noticed the secret policemen following him before the kidnaping. Piotrowski and his conspirators apparently believed they could pull off the crime without risk, and they hinted under interrogation that they did not expect to be tried.

In a press conference describing the police investigation, Urban suggested that there had been an antigovernment plot, but he refused to provide any evidence.

According to one theory, the secret-police officers schemed to kidnap Popieluszko in an effort to create a crisis and forestall a rumored plan by Jaruzelski to purge hardliners.

The Popieluszko murder is only one in a series of unexplained acts of violence during the past three years. According to the New York City-based U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, about 55 Poles, many of them former Solidarity activists or supporters, have died under mysterious circumstances since martial law was imposed. In the city of Wroclaw last week, a group of workers and intellectuals announced the creation of a committee to monitor human rights abuses. Members said they had taken the unusual step because "the police forces have slipped out of social control and even out of the control of the authorities."

Popieluszko's abductors may have arrogantly assumed that the fragmented opposition would be too weak to forcefully respond to his death. Instead, the tragedy had provided the nation with a new symbol of courage. In their shock and grief, many Poles recalled some of the last words spoken by their martyred priest. "A Christian's duty is to stand by the truth, even if truth carries with it a high price," Popieluszko had told parishioners from the city of Bydgoszcz who had gathered to recite the rosary. "Please God, let us retain our dignity throughout each day of our lives.''

--By John Kohan. Reported by John Moody/Warsaw

With reporting by John Moody/Warsaw