The role Pope John Paul II had in changing the social and religious fabric of his homeland makes his 1 May beatification a seismic event for Perth’s Polish community, writes Anthony Barich
As Pope John Paul II fortified Poland’s Catholics who were being imprisoned, beaten and killed by Communist forces in the decades following World War II, Perth’s four Polish Franciscan priests were right in the thick of it.
Franciscan Fr Tomasz Bujakowski, chaplain to Perth’s Polish Catholics, remembers it well. He and fellow Franciscan Frs Maciej Kaczmarczyk, Stanislaw Tomasiak and Piotr Rzucidlo, are all priests because of the influence of the late Polish Pontiff.
Fr Boleslad Smok OFM, who met John Paul II at a Eucharistic Congress in Melbourne in 1973, founded their Maylands base on Eighth Avenue, and in September 2009 they were given care of the Maylands parish one street over, on Seventh Avenue.
The four Franciscans told The Record that the elevation of Karol Wojtyla to the papacy, as John Paul II in 1978, marked the beginning of the end for Communism in Poland and throughout Europe, with the new Pope using the pulpit to instigate change.
In what was only his second apostolic voyage as Pope, John Paul II returned to his Polish homeland in 1979 to rally the faithful, many of whom are now in Perth waiting for him to be beatified on 1 May. It could be argued that the strength of their Catholic faith can be attributed to him.
“Before John Paul II, the Communist government never let anything the Pope said get in the media in Poland, but once the Polish Pope was elected, they could not stop it,” Fr Stanislaw said. “Every move he made, every pronouncement he made was newsworthy because he was Polish. We came to know the universal Church through our access to John Paul II.”
Catholic schools – few though they were – became more popular as John Paul II’s public opposition to Communism suited teenagers’ rebellious spirit to ‘fight the system’.
In conscripting young boys, the Communists targeted seminarians, setting them apart in special groups and trying to force them to get married; force-feeding their minds with evil like pornography to make them abandon their priestly vocation.
Fr Maciej, who served during liturgies celebrated by Karol WojtyÅa as Bishop and Cardinal in the main church in Krakow, was in one such unit.
“It was always a struggle opening new churches and parishes outside Krakow; Catholics were constantly fighting with Communist authorities to build up the Church. But Karol always helped us. We always had his support,” Fr Maciej said.
Fr Piotre remembers watching John Paul II on the black and white television, where the Pope’s white vestments stood out. He wanted to look and be like him, so joined the Franciscans as a missionary.
As Franciscan missionaries wear white habits instead of their traditional brown, Fr Piotre had part of his life-long dream fulfilled. He went on to found what is believed to be the world’s first church named after John Paul II when working as a missionary in Papua New Guinea in 2007.
The gravity of the late Pope’s role in the changes in both the social and religious fabric of Poland, and the depth of feeling towards him in their hearts will be reflected in the special Mass at Our Lady Queen of Poland in Maylands on 1 May.
The event coincides with the celebration, on the first Sunday of May, of Poland’s 1791 Constitution – which guaranteed the same rights to free speech and religion that the Communists ruthlessly crushed for three decades after World War II. It is widely regarded as Europe’s first and the world’s second modern codified national constitution, having been adopted on 3 May 1791, following the 1788 ratification of the United States Constitution.
This date, 3 May, is also the feast of Our Lady Queen of Poland, when Polish Australians venerate Mary with the Black Madonna of CzÄstochowa which sits in pride of place in the Maylands church.
There are about 10,000 Polish surnames throughout Perth, said Fr Tomasz, and while barely half those people are likely to speak the language, the community’s ‘blessing of the baskets’ Easter Saturday event draws over 2,000. They also draw up to 700 each Sunday to Our Lady Queen of Poland Church in Maylands and at St Brigid’s in Northbridge.
The Polish clubs at Beechboro and Bellevue are also well attended, while Poles also gather at Mass centres in Greenmount, run by the Salvatorian priests, and at St Patrick’s Basilica in Fremantle.
Our Lady of Poland Church, Maylands is home to a bust of John Paul II sculpted by Gerry Darwin who produced the three-dimensional Stations of the Cross in St Mary’s Cathedral. It is regularly decorated with fresh flowers which, Fr Tomasz said, reflects how well-loved the late Pope is.
For Perth’s Polish Catholics and for those the world over, it was only a matter of time before Pope Benedict XVI officially elevated him to the altar to be venerated as a saint.
Perth’s four Polish Franciscans witnessed the methodical way John Paul dismantled Communism in their country before it collapsed around Europe.
In 1981, the Military Council for National Salvation had imposed Martial Law (literally “The State of War” or stan wojenny) as a desperate act to end the Solidarity movement, which was backed by the Catholic Church and notably by John Paul himself.
For the Communist government, things had gotten out of hand since John Paul II uttered words during a Mass in Warsaw’s Victory Square on 2 June 1979 that motivated the faithful to change the country’s history: “Let the Holy Spirit renew this land,” the late Pope said, then, breaking from his prepared speech, he emphatically repeated the words “this land”.
Fr Tomasz said the Pope’s words were very meaningful for the Polish citizens – the vast majority of whom were Catholics – who understood them as an encouragement toward democratic change.
“We were sick of all the years of demonstrations, of being killed and arrested,” Fr Tomasz said. “John Paul’s speech encouraged us to believe that we could do something.”
The response to this speech, he said, was the Solidarity movement that started in June 1980.
This movement received international attention when Solidarity activist Fr Jerzy Popieluszko was beaten to death by Communist police agents in 1984 and his body dumped in the Vistula River.
The late priest moved a step closer to sainthood in June 2010.
“Fr Jerzy made the headlines because his sainthood cause is up, but he was not the only priest who was murdered; not by a long shot,” Fr Stanislaw told The Record.
That 1979 rally was also a landmark event, Fr Tomasz said, as it was the first time Catholics had been allowed to gather in public without restriction.
In 1956, police fired into a crowd of 100,000, killing at least 50 people during the infamous PoznaÅ protests over better working conditions.
A major uprising in Warsaw in 1968 saw thousands of students protest, and many were battered by police clubs and arrested.
Police again clashed with thousands of people during strikes in 1970 as people protested over plans to increase the prices of basic goods.
Fr Maciej was arrested walking through the streets where the protests were taking place, though he was just walking back to the seminary and was not involved.
John Paul II personally backed the Solidarity movement, but had instructed priests and seminarians who were involved never to admit their guilt, only to speak of their constitutional right to free speech, and to keep appealing through the courts if found guilty.
When the Pope visited his homeland again in 1983, Poland’s people were still in the grips of Marshall Law.
His speech on 23 June that year has been credited by some as “the moment the system collapsed”.
Fr Tomasz remembers it like it was yesterday. “I had walked all night on foot to meet him – seeing him on television was not enough,” Fr Tomasz said. “Personal contact – even if it was a kilometre away in the same venue – was everything for me.”
Firmly but diplomatically, John Paul spoke of the essence of truth, love for one’s brother and the need for freedom in every sense of the word as man’s highest value.
He also spoke of freedom being impossible without “solidarity.”
Poland’s people understood this last word unequivocally as code for the movement.
“Some people criticised John Paul II, saying he was not strong enough on Communism. They wanted him to urge people to start a revolution, but he wanted it done peacefully,” Fr Tomasz said.