Card. Stefan Wyszyński, being both the Primate of Poland and the highest social authority, in the period of People’s Republic of Poland, independent of the communist authorities, was an important point of reference influencing public opinions and social attitudes in our country. His attitude towards the state, which was the People’s Republic of Poland, is extremely important for understanding not only his decisions at particular stages of relations between the communist state and the Church, but also allows us to better understand the specific character of the PRL as a political system, its relationship with the communist party and with the Soviet center of the communist bloc, and to what extent it represented the Polish nation as a political community. Analysis of the Primate’s attitude with regard to important political events (elections to the communist Sejm, his attitude to political breakthroughs and social events – especially social resistance against communist regime), supplemented with an analysis of the Primate’s homiletics, allows me to formulate the thesis that the Primate of the Millennium considered the PRL as a Polish state, however he regarded it as degenerated through the structures of external dependence on the USSR and the ideological domination of the communist party – PZPR. In conclusion, the People’s Republic of Poland was a Polish state that fulfilled some of the needs of the Polish nation, regarded as a fundamental political community, but it was still far from being perfect. However, the fact that – in his view – People’s Republic of Poland was actually the Polish state, was highly significant. It imposed on Catholics a moral obligation to participate in social life, in a space inaccessible to the communist party, and to undertake all efforts to prevent the threat of external military intervention of the USSR and its allies.
The Church and the Catholic community during the Great Novena (1956–1966) contested the liberal abortion laws introduced by the Communists, arguing that it led to the depopulation of Poland. Formed of pronatalist attitudes based on the experiences of the previous epoch: Catholic parish counseling was developed, spouses were trained on natural family planning methods. Poles were integrated around the Millenium program proclamation of Card. Wyszyński, in which conscience of women through prayer, pilgrimage and preaching. Particular attention has been paid to single mothers and to large families, offering them social and organizational assistance in their parenting. The program of reception of church teaching in the field of marriage and the family was transferred to the forum of the council debate, actively developing the content of the document “Humanae vitae”. In this regard, the effect of the Church and the Catholic community was to strengthen the image of Poland as a country in which it struggled in defense of life and effectively countered the government’s reproductive policy.
The purpose of the following analysis is to present the actions undertaken by the Polish People’s Republic authorities during the preparations and celebrations of the millennium anniversary against two important hierarchs of the Catholic Church in Poland: Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and Archbishop Karol Wojtyła. The author describes the role of two bishops during the ‘Great Novena’ and the year of the main millennium celebrations and compares them in the light of party and state documentations.
PL
Celem poniższej analizy jest omówienie działań władz PRL w czasie przygotowań i obchodów milenijnych wobec dwóch ważnych hierarchów polskiego Kościoła: kard. Stefana Wyszyńskiego i abp. Karola Wojtyły. Opisano rolę obydwu biskupów w czasie Wielkiej Nowenny i głównych uroczystości milenijnych oraz dokonano ich porównania w świetle dokumentacji partyjno-państwowej.
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