JOEY BELLEZA

WRITER’S COMMENTS

In Professor Jorge Aquino’s class, Panamerican Saints: Hagiography and Politics, we considered sociological and religious factors which fueled the charismatic spirit of critical historical fi gures and their effects on popular movements. The fi nal project was a textual synthesis of our studies on a chosen “saint.” In choosing to study Pope John Paul II and his infl uence on Poland’s Solidarity movement, my fi rst course paper covered the relevant historical events of his papacy. While comprehensive in scope, my personal affection for the pontiff signifi cantly tinted certain parts, giving the appearance of a “fl uffy hagiography,” in Prof. Aquino’s words. He urged me to “adopt a more critical posture” as well as to articulate a proposition I asserted without signifi cant expansion: the role of Catholicism as a unifying force in Polish history. My entry was my fi nal project for this class. It is a reading of the life and activism of John Paul II and how he used his personal charisma, the power of his offi ce, and his understanding of Polish ecclesiastical history to effectively confront Soviet oppression. —Joey Belleza

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

The course seeks to reassess traditional ideas of spirituality to consider how spirituality is grounded in everyday life through what liberation theology would call “liberating historical projects.” Thus, we consider how charismatic social movements create a highly politicized spiritual fi eld in the service of social change. Mr. Belleza decided to take up a study of Pope John Paul II, early drafts of which I critiqued for its uncritical and ahistorical celebration of an undoubtedly great pontiff. I then urged him to research the history of Polish Catholicism. His fi nal study is nothing less than a skeleton key to John Paul’s papacy, showing how John Paul deployed the motifs and values of ten centuries of Polish Catholicism to inspire the Solidarity movement. It could be argued—substantially on the basis of Belleza’s work—that John Paul’s Polish-Catholic politics caused a temblor in the social order of Cold War Eastern Europe that would lead decisively to the breakdown of Soviet Communism. In this respect, Belleza’s work exemplifi es excellent undergraduate scholarship. —Jorge Aquino, Department of Theology and Religious Studies

107 KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

JOEY BELLEZA

Karol Wojtyla in the Trajectory of Polish History

I. Introduction

N THE POST-COLD WAR global political confi guration, Poland has Iemerged as a signifi cant actor on the world stage, actively participating in the European Union and NATO alliance while exercising expeditionary military power on a scale unseen since the time of King John III Sobieski (1629-1696). Its recent resurgence from an unfortunate tradition of foreign domination is accompanied by a hitherto unseen institutional and governmental stability, and this newfound political longevity signals the increasing improbability of a return to its colonized past. Yet the Polish eye to the future never loses sight of the path which has led to this point. In fact, the course of Polish history exhibits what might be called an “eschatological trajectory” which (like the Christian conception of salvation history) culminates in a decisive break from a past wrought with subservience and violence, all consummated through a leader of inherently peaceful disposition. The history of Poland, much like the biblical history of the Jews, depicts a people in perennial subjection to foreign powers, save those few instances in which strong kings achieved a measure of prestige and stability, only for national integrity to expire with the death of the monarch who achieved it. Poland’s geographical location, sandwiched between aggressive Germanic peoples to the west, warlike Russians and Cossacks to the east, and (later) the Ottomans to the southeast, made the Polish soil the site of partition after partition. Yet despite this disposition, the Polish race managed to avoid complete cultural absorption into these other more powerful entities.

II. Church and state in Poland: A history of an indissoluble union

The preservation of their heritage lies in the fact that the Polish people’s historical development is totally coincident with, or largely dependent

108 JOEY BELLEZA

on, the history and presence of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe. Ecclesiastical infl uence, in fact, might be considered the lifeblood of the Polish nation. The two major formerly pagan Slavic tribes which inhabited present-day Poland prior to Christianization, the Polans and the Vistulans, were simply loose confederations of nomadic clans which, prior to the late 10th century, had intermittently banded together only as necessary to repel invasion from Tartars and Cossacks from the east1. Only when Mieszko I, duke of the Polans, had conquered the Vistulans and other local tribes, did the geographical area of Poland become consolidated under one secular power. His marriage in 965 A.D. to Dobrawa, daughter of the Christian duke of Bohemia, Boleslav, precipitated Mieszko’s own conversion to Latin Christianity, followed by a state-wide conversion to Roman Catholicism in 966. Poland’s initiation into the Christian faith was simultaneously a baptism into statehood2. Christianization granted offi cial diplomatic recognition from the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy See, with Mieszko’s territory centered on a capital at Gniezno. Christianization also put Poland in closer contact with the Mediterranean world, opening the way for signifi cant cultural and intellectual exchanges which facilitated the transformation of the Polish people from a quasi-nomadic collection of warrior tribes to a more stabilized socio-political entity. Missionaries and bishops sent from Rome provided centers of culture and administrative stability throughout the reign of the Piast dynasty (the line of kings descended from Mieszko). Despite Poland’s establishment as a state, borders remained porous and nomadic Tartars still plundered the countryside. The eastern border regions suff ered thanks to their distance from Gniezno, and in the absence of strong secular administration, abbots and bishops became the de facto civil guardians of the frontier plains. The fi erce adherence of the Polish people to the Church was seen even in the earliest centuries of their history. When Bishop (later Saint) Stanislaus of Krakow (+1079) publicly condemned and excommunicated Piast King Boleslaw II for adultery and other vices, the king ordered the bishop’s death. The martyrdom produced a massive insurrection in Poland in which Boleslaw was deposed, exiled to Hungary, and succeeded by his brother Wladislaw I.3 In this story, we see emphatically the undisputed primacy of religious loyalty over secular authority. The Stanislaus narrative, therefore, serves two purposes: fi rst, it depicts the almost inseparable

1. Morton, J.B. Sobieski. Eyre and Spottiswood, London: 1932, p. 9. 2. Morton, p. 10. 3. Calendarium Romanum. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Rome, 1969. p. 122.

109 KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

convergence of Polish national identity and Polish religious history; second, it functions as a stern caveat to political leaders who might dare threaten the dignity of ecclesiastical power. These are motifs which survive unto the present day, and it is fascinating to remember this point when, 900 years later, a successor of Stanislaus will fi nd the courage to raise his voice in opposition to another troubling political order. Years later, another Piast, Boleslaw III (+1138), radically shifted the geographical makeup of Poland by instituting a complex and almost arbitrary system of succession where the land was divided between four of his sons. Wladislaw II, the eldest son, immediately moved to deny his brothers their possessions and thus began the fragmentation of Poland into opposing camps. The state of intermittent war in the 12th and 13th centuries once again left the cathedrals and monasteries as centers of civilization and learning as castles and palaces became battlefi elds and graveyards. While the secular makeup of the divided Polish lands depended largely on the royal personalities which governed them, the strict hierarchical organization of the Church allowed for effi cient administration despite the factionalization and civil turmoil which lasted almost two centuries. It was not until the rise of Ladislaus the Short (+1333) that allowed Poland to reestablish to its long-lost security. This strong king, writes J.B. Morton,

had rescued the country from the anarchy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This had been possible only because he had the backing of the Church and because throughout this period of darkness and dissolution the Church had remained the repository of everything that was meant by Western civilization.4

During the reign of his son Casimir III, the last Piast King, Poland enjoyed reunifi cation and relative stability. Through tactful diplomacy combining concessions to the southward Bohemians with eastward territorial expansion, Casimir (the Great) solidifi ed his nation’s status as a formidable European power. He established the Academia Cracoviensis (the Academy of Krakow, the future Jagellonian University which would later count Karol Wojtyla among its illustrious alumni) in 1364 with the blessing of Pope Urban V, making Krakow a new center of faith, culture, and education. Yet the bliss enjoyed by Poland in this period would prove fl eeting, as Casimir died in 1370 without a male heir, thus ending the Piast dynasty5. The death of the Piasts was followed by the rise of the Jagiellon

4. Morton, p. 16 (emphasis mine). 5. Ibid.

110 JOEY BELLEZA

dynasty, the union of Poland with Lithuania, and the rule of elective monarchy. The union created a massive consolidation of territory and power, allowing the new commonwealth a more formidable posture against the creeping Ottomans to the southeast and the Teutonic Knights from the north. Furthermore, the system of elective monarchy increased the infl uence of the Church in Poland. In the fi rst place, bishops enjoyed the right to vote in the election of a king. Secondly, in an interregnum period (similar to the sede vacante period between the death of a Pope and the election of his successor), the administration of the Polish- Lithuanian commonwealth fell to the Primate of Poland, the Archbishop of Gnzieno.6 The constitutional designation of the interregnal function as an ex-offi cio privilege of that primatial see further served to seamlessly blend the spiritual and temporal realms while defi nitively testifying to the enduring power and prestige of the Polish Church. The expansion of the Ottomans into the Balkans in the 17th century plunged Europe into an unprecedented economic, political, religious, and cultural crisis. Polish armies fought against Turkish forces not only to protect its homeland from foreign occupation but also to save the heritage of Christian Europe. John Sobieski, already a famed military commander who had commanded decisive victories against invading Muslim Turks and Protestant Swedes, was elected King of Poland in 1676 with the overwhelming support of the nobles7. From the start of the Turkish onslaught in 1682, the Ottomans only needed less than one year to cut through the heart of Europe and encircle Vienna by July 1683. Although Sobieski was obliged by a treaty hastily concluded the previous winter with the Hapsburgs to come to Vienna’s aid, the Polish king mobilized his forces primarily in response to Pope Innocent XI’s call for a Holy League to defend Europe from Saracen invasion. It was the specter of Christian obliteration, more than any other political obligation, that compelled Sobieski to leave his own nation almost completely defenseless by marching the entire Polish army to Austria. The 87,000-strong Polish contingent commanded by Sobieski became the undisputed centerpiece of the Christian relief force, supported by various Austrian and German armies. The decisive engagement of September 12 began with a massive infantry battle with Turks simultaneously fi ghting Vienna’s defenders and elements of the relief army. By evening, with the Turks fatigued from hours of a two-front

6. “Gnesen-Posen”. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913. 7. Palmer, Allen. The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. Barnes & Noble Publishing, 1992. p. 355

111 KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

battle, Sobieski led the 20,000 Polish and German mounted soldiers in the largest cavalry charge in history towards the Turkish right fl ank and into their rear encampment, breaking the back of Ottoman forces and forcing their frenzied retreat. Through Sobieski’s climactic fi nal stroke, Vienna was relieved, and from this point onward, eventual Turkish withdrawals from Transylvania and Hungary would follow. The frightening terror symbolized by the Ottoman crescent waned dramatically, having lost a ferocity never again to be seen in Europe. Yet despite this spectacular victory by which Sobieski was practically apotheosized by Christian Europe (Innocent XI had dubbed him salvator Europae after the battle), the victorious king displayed the Polish people’s humble loyalty to his Christian faith by uttering his famous mutilation of Caesar’s motto: venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit— “we came, we saw, God conquered.”8 In all these events we fi nd the Church a constant and decisive presence in the history of Poland. It functioned as a cohesive force in times of trial and foreign domination, an arbiter of power and peace among feuding nobles, and a source of cultural and educational development. It is into this historical heritage that Karol Wojtyla was born. Coming of age in the 20th century’s interwar period, he witnessed, just as centuries of Poles preceeding him, the loss of sovereignty thanks to the encroachments of Russians and Germans. Like the fl eeting periods of stability squandered by the old Piast and Jagiellon kings, he stood helplessly as the blissful conclusion of World War II gave way to yet another form of foreign dominance. By virtue of his devout theological upbringing, we might not be unreasonable in thinking that in the plight of his nation, Wojtyla saw a struggle parallel to that endured by the people of the Old Testament whose hopes were fulfi lled in the New. And in the comparison of these struggles, he had to extract some sense of hope——that despite the tremendous adversity, the promise of the futility of the gates of hell would prove true. If the Church was indefectible, neither was Poland, and this was proved as the culture and the people survived eras even when their country was not mapped. Ever since Miezsko I set the infantile Polish state into the cradle of Holy Mother Church, this mother continuously nursed her child, sustaining the perennial perseverance of the Polish people. In the depths of his heart, Wojtyla probably believed that a complete separation of Church and state would prove fatal for his homeland. The struggle against the hammer

8. Ibid.

112 JOEY BELLEZA

and sickle, therefore, would not be won from the turrets of tanks but from the pulpits of parishes. In Cold War Poland, the Communists had tried to separate God from daily life and, in doing so, represented a threat to the faith which the Poles held dear. In a similar manner, the incursions of the Turks constituted a mortal threat to that same Christian religion which had bound the Polish people throughout its tumultuous history. Sobieski and Wojtyla, therefore, were giants who astutely understood the necessity of ecclesiastical presence in Polish life. In 1683, she was able to call for men and arms to save Vienna and Europe. 300 years later, she was able to sustain and encourage the Poles to strike and force government acceptance of fairer working conditions through the 1981 Gdansk accords9. Yet, due to the system of elective monarchy of that time, Sobieski’s success did not survive the epoch-defi ning moments of the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, what Wojtyla helped to accomplish continues in a system of government more stable than anything Poland had experienced prior. What separates these two great men are centuries of shifting political winds and hastily redrawn national boundaries. But what binds the two and what made both of them so eff ective was the innate understanding that no foreign power could maintain a sustained hegemonic control over Poland so long as the Church remained standing. It is indicative of the characteristically ferocious Polish loyalty to the faith which gave birth to its statehood. Morton’s comment concerning the ineff ectiveness of the Reformation on the Poles can easily apply to the repeated resurgence of Polish Catholicism in the face of foreign powers:

It will be interesting to remember this when, later, we see these peasants, who are little more than slaves, rise against a foreign invader in defense of their religion, and by personal example remind all men that the Polish cause and the Catholic cause are one.10

III. John Paul II: The Decisive Actor

At his Mass of Installation as Bishop of Rome, Pope John Paul II spoke in his homily words that since then have become famous: “Non abbiate paura! Aprite, anzi, spalancate le porte a Cristo.”11 This phrase has

9. Bernstein, Carl. His Holiness. Doubleday, New York: 1996. pg. 377. 10. Morton, p. 16 (emphasis mine). 11. John Paul II, homily for Inauguration Mass: “Do not have fear! Open, or rather, open wide the doors to Christ!”

113 KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

been oft-quoted by itself, and, in doing so, it is easy to interpret it as an innocuous admonition toward goodness and peace. Yet the very next words surely must have sent tremors through the Kremlin.

To his saving power open the confi nes of states, economic systems as well as political, the vast fi elds of culture, of civility, of development. Do not have fear! Christ knows what is within man; only he knows!12

This was no benign religious statement: John Paul knew very well the tyranny of political and economic systems which aimed to separate Christ from culture, for these same systems had thrust his beloved homeland into the subservient position in a parasitic relationship. It became quite apparent, from the very beginning of his pontifi cate, that he intended to use the overwhelming moral power of the Church to help topple Communism. The fi ght against Communism continued fi ve months into the pontifi cate with the release of John Paul’s fi rst encyclical, Redemptor Hominis. The Pontiff decried “atheism that is programmed, organized, and structured as a political system”13; it was a nuanced euphemism, a clear albeit indirect reference to Soviet communism—the new pope would not yet dare to directly confront the vast political-military might of the USSR so early in his career. But it sowed the seeds of what was to come: a pontifi cate marked by unswerving loyalty to Christ the Redeemer and, on the basis of this Christology, a systematic repudiation of Marxism, the new socio-economic serfdom which held Poland captive. The people of Poland found comfort in the words of their brother Pope, and more encouragement was to come. Mere weeks after the release of Redemptor Hominis, John Paul returned to his homeland on his fi rst Apostolic Visit, greeted by throbbing crowds unseen in papal events. The reality of not only a non-Italian but a Polish Pontiff electrifi ed the nation that held Catholicism as the primary unifying force among its people. Hearing Mass in Warsaw’s Victory Square, his homily reinforced the fears of communist authorities as passionate, angry citizens cheered the Pope’s words. He told them:

Christ cannot be kept out of this part of the world: To try to do this is an act against man. We want God—we want God in the family circle, in books, in schools, in government orders…

12. Ibid. 13. Redemptor Hominis 1, offi cial Vatican translation.

114 JOEY BELLEZA

It is not possible to understand the history of the Polish nation without Christ.14

The words were no mere rhetorical fl ourish, given the decisiveness of the Church in Polish history. His speech continued, invoking the memory of the martyrs St. Stanislaus, bishop of Krakow, and of the priest Maximilian Kolbe, not yet canonized, in words that were sure to stir sentiments of Polish nationalism. Yet he did not incite them to violence, and, in his reference to martyrdom, John Paul reminded the angry crowd that suff ering would be an inevitable part of the continuing eff ort. He instilled in them a hope not blindly tied to this world but a hope in the promise of a greater spiritual promise. To be sure, Pope Wojtyla longed to see a free Poland but not a free Poland only for the sake of political liberty. The freedom he saw as paramount was the freedom to worship; this needed to be achieved not as an end in itself, but as a precursor to the restoration of what he considered Christ’s rightful place in Polish life. In 1980, the price of meat (almost all of which was imported from Russia) in Poland reached intolerably high levels while coal shortages left Poles unable to heat their homes. As a result, 17,000 workers led a massive strike at the shipyards at Gdansk beginning 14 August. It was a continuation of the outrage expressed by Polish workers at the July strikes in Lublin, but this time the national response was more than overwhelming. The Polish workforce rallied behind Lech Walesa, a charismatic, unemployed electrician who fi rst came to fame as a leader in the 1970 riots which resulted in the deaths of 42 Poles and the resignation of Party First Secretary Wladyslaw Gormulka. A series of sit-in strikes all over Poland ground the economy to a halt, and, for over two weeks, the world observed the most vigorous (and successful) anti-Moscow political uprising in Eastern Europe since the Iron Curtain was drawn. Warsaw’s hand was forced and by September 3, the Polish government and workers had signed agreements in which the government acquiesced to labor’s demands. Out of the success of the strikes emerged Solidarity, a nationwide labor union with Walesa at its forefront. He became the visible head of Polish nationalism and opposition, and he led a delegation of fourteen Solidarity leaders who were received by John Paul in an audience granted in January 1981. The highly publicized meeting granted Poland a much needed image of undeniable ecclesiastical support. In the aftermath of the audience, Polish opposition coalesced into a more formidable unity. Catholic academicians organized under the banner

14. John Paul II, homily in Victory Square, Warsaw, 1979.

115 KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

of Catholic Intellectual Clubs (KIK) had already appreciated Wojtyla’s staunch anti-Communism during his tenure at Krakow. They, like their Pope, depicted the plight of Poland in the context of a Christian struggle for human rights. Members of KIK integrated freely with Solidarity, and what was once a purely social-political movement now gained an eschatological framework which appealed to the historical consciousness of Poles. From Castel Gandolfo in the previous summer, the Pope publicly granted blessing to the strikes. The fusion of Magisterial will and public disgruntlement with socialism delivered a body blow to the Polish Worker’s Party (the Communist Party of Poland) from which it would never recover. As the loyalty of the people shifted toward Solidarity, Moscow’s grip on Eastern Europe inevitably grew more and more tired. The turn of the decade marked a historical kairos moment in which world events seemed to converge in a decisive fashion. Thatcher and Reagan had come to power in the UK and US, respectively; Wojtyla became Pope; the Egyptian-Israeli peace accords of 1979 played to American advantages; and on the other side of the Muslim world, Soviet forces were hotly engaged in an economy-crippling guerilla war in Afghanistan. The fact that the 1980 strikes in Poland did not end with violent Soviet intervention like the 1956 uprising in Budapest or the 1968 riots in Prague only served as further evidence that the Iron Curtain was beginning to buckle. While the Western Powers found ways to engage Communism from without, Wojtyla led the charge against the hammer and sickle from within. The hot political skirmishes continued when the Kremlin pressured Polish Prime Minister General Jaruzelski into declaring martial law, which came into eff ect 12 December. The next public steps of the Pope were aimed at the revitalization of a peaceful Polish nationalism. Elements of Solidarity were becoming radical and violent as Polish dissidents were captured, tortured, and executed, fi nally resulting in Solidarity’s dissolution; John Paul understood that this anger needed to be tempered lest Poland suff er full-scale Soviet intervention. In a personal letter written to Jaruzelski, the Pope implored the general to halt the bloodshed and to restore normal civil rule. Within the letter, he (perhaps unwittingly) assumed the position as Poland’s spokesman and cited a revocation of martial law as essential to fulfi ll humanity’s desire for world peace. In the most explicit terms, the letter informs Jaruzelski that “the Church”, not just the Pope, “speaks out for this desire”15. In concert with his personal Marian devotion, his 1983 visit to Poland

15. Bernstein, Carl. His Holiness. Doubleday, New York: 1996. pg. 345.

116 JOEY BELLEZA

included a pilgrimage to the monastery at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa served to rouse the Polish consciousness. It was the site where in the winter of 1655, a handful of monks and volunteers, with Maccabean tenacity, fended off a month-long siege by thousands of Swedish invaders16. The victory, attributed to the miraculous image of the Our Lady of Częstochowa (aka “the Black Madonna”) staged there, was once again implored by John Paul to sustain the people of Poland. The icon was a clear, public reminder of Poland’s place as a quasi-eternal underdog in history but also as a symbol of hope against a deluge of unfortunate odds. During the same 1983 visit, John Paul beatifi ed the priests Stanislaw Brzoska and Raphael Kalinowski, who had died in the failed 1863 uprising against the Russians. The act was a clear fusion of political aims and religious sentiment, and it gave the Polish people new heroes to venerate and new examples to follow. The same was done one year prior with Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan martyred by the Nazis at Auschwitz, through a canonization which extolled the virtues of service and sacrifi ce in the face of external dominance17. These acts resulted in a resurgence of Polish piety, not unlike that which occurred as Sobieski marched for Vienna, with Masses and pilgrimages to the Black Madonna being prayed for the success of the enterprise. With Solidarity gone underground by 1983, the Church was now the single voice of the Polish people which dared to cry out. John Paul heard Mass for crowds of millions of people who fl ocked to his presence. In his homilies, he spoke of the need for human rights, for respect for life, for social stability, and love of neighbor, all veiled but pointed criticisms of the Communist regime. In a televised speech later during the visit, the Pope unequivocally asserted Poland’s “proper place among the nations of Europe, East and West,” saying that “social agreements stipulated by the representatives of state authorities with representatives of the workers”18 were the only way to achieve a true sense of Polish sovereignty. Every Pole understood that the “social agreements” cited by the Pope referred to the Gdansk accords which ended the 1980 strikes. His reference to the stunning popular victory of the past galvanized support both for the Church and for anti-Soviet resistance. Lech Walesa, still under house arrest, gained more positive popular sentiment than ever. Neither Jaruzelski nor Brezhnev could ignore the Pope or his beloved people, and nor could they continue the policy of systematic oppression which had paralyzed the nation without consequence. Walesa was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Peace, and Solidarity continued to function as an underground organization. Tensions

16. The siege of Jasna Gora 1655. (http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/Czestochowa/jasna_ gora_1655.htm). 17. St. Maximilian Kolbe. (http://www.catholic-pages.com/saints/st_maximilian.asp). 18. Bernstein, pg. 377.

117 KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

between Church and State intensifi ed, culminating in the assassination of pro-Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko by Polish security agents. The sentiments of Polish nationalism inspired by John Paul from his recent visit were made manifest in the hundreds of thousands who attended the funeral. It is no surprise that soon after John Paul’s second Apostolic Visit to his homeland, the government lifted martial law. The release of a new social encyclical, Laborem Exercens, breathed new life into the Polish resistance by providing a Catholic framework for Solidarity’s mission. The text contained innumerable references to the virtue of “solidarity” and praised the value of human work as an extension of divine creation. Laborem Exercens implicitly but forcefully decried the Poland’s status, where John Paul pointed out the paradox of that Marxist nation: the workers were against Communism. By unequivocally stating that Christ “belongs to the world of labor” where “he has appreciation and respect for human work”19, he once more galvanized the anti-Soviet movements across Eastern Europe by reassuring them of the justice inherent in their cause. The 1985 ascent of Gorbachev onto the political scene signaled an ever- more clear indication of the Eastern Bloc’s imminent decline. The fresh air blown in by perestroika and glasnost created a ripple eff ect throughout the nations of the Warsaw Pact, and, for the fi rst time since martial law, Solidarity was once again demonstrating publicly and openly despite their illegal status. Polish optimism experienced a renewed outburst when, in 1987, John Paul returned for a third time to his homeland. This time he said Mass in Gdansk, the hometown of Walesa and the site of the landmark 1980 strikes. In his homily, characteristically and frequently interrupted by the applause and cheers of his compatriots, he exhibited his astute rhetorical abilities when he told the crowd, “There cannot be a struggle more powerful than solidarity. There cannot be an agenda for struggle above the agenda of solidarity”20. At these words, the masses went wild. It was apparent that, as a Christian, he extolled solidarity as a virtue, but at the same time, as a Pole, he praised Solidarity as an organized social movement. The offi cial Vatican texts, both in Polish and in its Italian translation, keep the words solidanosc and solidarietà in the lower case, but in the context of a public speech which is heard—not read—the elegant ambiguity of the word was like sweet, affi rmative lyricism spoken from the lips of the poet-Pope. The ever greater numbers of people who journeyed once again to see John Paul in 1987 demonstrated both the obsolescence of the Polish Worker Party and the new prestige of Solidarity, which had 19. Laborem Exercens 118. 20. Homily at Gdansk, 1987, from Vatican Italian translation.

118 JOEY BELLEZA

de facto become the true representative organization of the Polish people. The Polish Communists were left with no choice; a stable government required the participation of Solidarity. In 1988, the Polish Worker Party held round table talks with representatives of Solidarity and both parties agreed to quasi-democratic elections in 1989 which guaranteed the Communists a certain quota of seats, and, therefore, considerable infl uence in the new parliament. The elections, however, brought an unexpected result with Solidarity winning 99 of 100 seats in the Senate and 35% of all possible seats in the lower house. In that instant, the end of the Eastern Bloc began. The Soviet Union relied on major railway and air corridors through Poland to supply its massive garrisons in East Germany. The sudden election of a government now favorable to the United States eff ectively cut off Soviet forces closest to NATO borders. One month after the July elections, the Berlin Wall fell and all of communist Europe would follow soon after. It would seem that John Paul’s message from the beginning of his pontifi cate fi nally saw fulfi llment in a concrete way; doors to Christ had been opened, and from the inside, Christ had shattered the walls.

IV. Conclusion: The Liberation of Poland

In the debates concerning the predominantly Latin American phenomenon of liberation theology, the ambassadors of doctrinal orthodoxy (to include John Paul II and Benedict XVI) have frequently warned against an over- secularized approach symbolized by the preference of sociological methods over theological ones. From his allocution to the assembly of Latin American bishops at Puebla in 1979, we can infer his sentiment that the term “liberation” had been “hijacked” by popular liberation theologians who seemed to leave the eschatological dimension behind, limiting the concept of liberation to empirically observable, purely political (and often partisan) success, even if it means betraying the traditional tenets of Christian morality through recourse to violence. The impressiveness of John Paul’s contribution to the liberation of Poland is a product of the homogeneous fusion of political objectives and religious purpose in a manner consonant with the constant moral teaching of the Church. This philosophical consistency, embedded in the spirit of the Solidarity movement, is what allowed the anti-Communist resistance to function as an almost united front, remaining formidable and infl uential despite open repression. It is the same force which preserved Polish identity and culture despite centuries of intermittent prosperity and subjugation. Yet in the age of John Paul II, something new occurred. The Church, as a

119 KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

maternal protectress, had always been suffi cient in simply maintaining Polish identity without guaranteeing a political stability with feasible longevity. It would seem that under Wojtyla’s pontifi cate, Poland fi nally came of age, for in the image of the Polish pope, we fi nd a novel icon which eloquently symbolizes what it means to be Polish and Catholic. As Archbishop of Krakow, he was successor of St. Stanislaus, the primordial patron of Poland; as Bishop of Rome, he was successor of St. Peter, the point of reference for ecclesiastical union. Through both titles, he personifi ed an unprecedented development of the unity between Poland and the Church. When Wojtyla ascended to the papacy, it was almost as if Poland was raised up with him, revitalized, resurgent, and resurrected in a way never before seen. The collapse of Soviet communism can thus be considered the culminating political-eschatological moment of Polish history wherein that nation at last found its “proper place among the nations of Europe, East and West.” Poland’s transfi guration from serial victim to emerging world power is ultimately a product of and a tribute to John Paul’s fundamental insight that it is “not possible to understand the history of the Polish nation without Christ.”

120