Priests, as coworkers of the bishop, naturally assume most of these duties. However, the personal involvement of the diocesan pastor in the administration of sacraments is a good example for all the people of God entrusted to him, both laity and priests. It is the most eloquent sign of his bond with Christ, present and active in each of these sacramental mysteries. Christ Himself wishes us to be instruments of the work of salvation that He accomplishes through the sacraments of the Church. These effective signs of grace reveal to the human soul the face of Christ, merciful Redeemer and Good Shepherd. A bishop who personally administers the sacraments clearly demonstrates to all the faithful that he is a sign of Christ, who is always present and active in His Church.
Pastoral Visits
I have already mentioned that I used to work regularly at the curia, but I particularly enjoyed pastoral visitations. I liked them very much because they put me in direct contact with people. I had a strong sense that I was “forming” them. Priests and laity, young people and old, the healthy and sick, parents with their children and their problems—all came to me with whatever was on their mind. That was life.
I remember well my first pastoral visitation to Mucharz, south of Wadowice. The parish had an elderly pastor, an excellent priest, a monsignor. His name was Józef Motyka. He knew this was my first pastoral visitation and he was moved by this. He told me this could be his last. He felt he should be my guide. The visitation embraced the entire deanery and lasted the months of May and June. After the summer vacation, I visited my home deanery, Wadowice.
Visitations took place in the spring and in the fall. I did not manage to visit all of the parishes (there were more than three hundred of them); in spite of the fact that I was a bishop in Kraków for twenty years, I didn’t get to them all. I remember that the last parish I visited in the archdiocese of Kraków was Saint Joseph in Złote
Łany, a new residential area of Bielsko-Biała. I spent the night at the Divine Providence parish, where Father Józef Sanak was pastor. On my return from this visitation, I offered Mass for the repose of the soul of Pope John Paul I and then went to Warsaw to participate in the meetings of the Episcopal Conference. After this I set off for Rome . . . not knowing that I would have to remain there.
My pastoral visitations were rather long; maybe that’s why I didn’t manage to visit all the parishes. I worked out my own model for carrying out this pastoral responsibility. There was, in fact, a traditional model with which I began when I visited Mucharz. The old monsignor whom I met there was a valuable tutor. Later, after acquiring some experience, I introduced certain changes. I was not happy with an unduly juridical approach; I wanted the visitations to be more pastoral.
I worked out a particular pattern. The visitation always began with a welcome ceremony in which various persons and groups took part: adults, children, and young people. Then they took me to the church where I gave an address in order to establish a rapport with the people. The next day I first heard confessions for an hour or two, depending on the circumstances.
Then I celebrated Mass and visited homes, especially the homes of sick people. Unfortunately, the communists would not allow me to visit hospitals. The sick were also brought to church for a special ceremony. The Servant of God Hanna Chrzanowska took care of this aspect of the visitation throughout the diocese. I have always been very conscious of the fundamental importance of what the suffering contribute to the life of the Church. I remember that at the beginning the sick intimidated me. I needed a lot of courage to stand before a sick person and enter, so to speak, into his physical and spiritual pain, not to betray discomfort, and to show at least a little loving compassion. Only later did I begin to grasp the profound meaning of the mystery of human suffering. In the weakness of the sick, I saw emerging ever more clearly a new strength— the strength of mercy. In a sense, the sick provoke mercy. Through their prayers and sacrifices, they not only ask for mercy but create a “space for mercy,” or better, open up spaces for mercy. By their illness and suffering they call forth acts of mercy and create the possibility for accomplishing them. I used to entrust the needs of the Church to the prayers of the sick, and the results were always positive. During a visitation I would also administer the sacraments: confirming young people and celebrating marriages.
I would meet separately with different groups, such as teachers, parish workers, and young people. There was also a special gathering in church for all married couples. Mass would be celebrated, concluding with an individual blessing for each couple. The homily would naturally be dedicated to the subject of marriage. I always felt moved when I encountered large families and expectant mothers. I wanted to express my respect for motherhood and fatherhood. From the beginning of my priesthood, I have always had a special pastoral concern for married couples and families. As a chaplain to university students, I regularly organized marriage preparation courses, and later, as a bishop, I promoted the pastoral care of families. These experiences, these meetings with engaged couples, married couples, and families, gave birth to my poetic drama The Jeweler’s Shop, my book Love and Responsibility, and, more recently, my Letter to Families.
There were also separate meetings with the clergy. I wanted to give an opportunity to each of them to confide in me, to share the joys and concerns of their particular ministry. I greatly valued these meetings; they enabled me to learn from the treasury of wisdom accumulated over many years of apostolic labor.
The way pastoral visitations were conducted varied according to the circumstances in a given parish. Their situations were, in fact, very diverse. For example, the parish visitation to the Basilica of the Assumption in Kraków lasted two months, as there are so many churches and chapels there. The visitation to Nowa Huta was totally different. There was no church there, even though there were tens of thousands of inhabitants. There was just a small chapel adjoining the old school. It must be remembered that in those post-Stalin times, the government waged war with religion. It would not allow the construction of new churches in a socialist city such as Nowa Huta was intended to be.
The Battle for a Church
Here at Nowa Huta there was a hard battle to build a church. The neighborhood was home to many thousands of inhabitants, mainly workers from all over Poland employed in the large metallurgical industry. According to the authorities, Nowa Huta was to be a perfect model of a socialist city, that is to say, with no link of any kind to the Church. Yet it was impossible to forget that the people who went there in search of work had no wish to abandon their Catholic roots.
The struggle began in the large residential area of Bieńczyce. At the beginning, the communist authorities yielded to pressure, and gave permission to build a church and designated the land for it. Immediately the local people erected a cross there. This permission, however, granted during the time of Archbishop Baziak, was later withdrawn, and the authorities decreed the removal of the cross. The faithful vehemently opposed this. There followed a confrontation with the police in which some people were injured. The mayor asked us to calm the people. This was one of the first incidents in a long battle for freedom and dignity by the population whose destiny had brought them to this new district of Kraków.
In the end the battle was won, but at the cost of a lengthy war of nerves. I conducted discussions with the authorities, mainly with the head of the provincial Office for Religious Affairs. He was truly polite in conversation but stubborn and unrelenting in making decisions, and this betrayed his malice and bias.
Father Józef Gorzelany, the pastor, undertook the task of building the church and brought it to a successful conclusion. He made a wise pastoral suggestion to his parishioners. He asked each of them to bring a stone that would be used for the foundations and the walls, so that everyone felt personally involved in the construction of the new church.
We experienced the same kind of situation in Mistrzejowice. This episode revolved around the heroic Father Józef Kurzeja, who came to me on his own initiative and requested that h
e be assigned to minister in that district. There was a small structure there in which he wanted to begin catechism classes in the hope that slowly he would be able to build a new parish. It came to pass, but the fight to build a church in Mistrzejowice cost Father Kurzeja his life. Oppressed by the communist authorities, he died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-nine.
Father Kurzeja was helped in his fight to build a church in Mistrzejowice by Father Mikołaj Kuczkowski, who, like myself, was a native of Wadowice. I remember him from his days as an attorney when he was engaged to Nastka, a beautiful girl who was the president of the Catholic Youth Association. When she died, he decided to become a priest. He entered the seminary in 1939 and began his philosophical and theological studies, which he completed in 1945. I was very close to him, and he was also fond of me. He wanted, as we say, “to make someone of me.” After my ordination as a bishop, he personally took charge of my move to the episcopal residence on 3 Franciszkańska Street. I repeatedly had occasion to learn of his great affection for Father Józef Kurzeja, the first pastor in Mistrzejowice and a simple, good man (one of his sisters became a Sister of the Sacred Heart). As I mentioned, Father Kuczkowski was of great help to him in his pastoral activity, and when Father Kurzeja died, he resigned from the office of chancellor of the curia to take his place in the parish at Mistrzejowice. Now both lie buried in the crypt of the church they built.
Much could be said about them. For me, they were an eloquent example of priestly fraternity that, as a bishop, I observed and encouraged with admiration: “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure” (Sirach 6:14). True friendship is born of Christ: “I have called you friends . . .” (John 15:15).
Bishop Ignacy Tokarczuk, of the neighboring diocese of Przemyśl, made significant progress in the matter of building churches in the People’s Republic of Poland. He built them illegally, at the cost of many sacrifices and much harsh treatment from the local communist authorities. In his case, though, the situation was more favorable, because the communities in his diocese were predominantly rural villages, without the same difficulties that urban communities had. In the country, not only were the people more interested in religion, but they were less subject to the control of the police.
I remember with deep gratitude and admiration all the pastors who were building churches in Poland during that time and all those throughout the world who have built churches. I have always tried to support them. One way of expressing my support was through my celebrations of Christmas Midnight Mass at Nowa Huta, under the open sky, regardless of the freezing temperatures. I had already done this in Bieńczyce, and I was to do the same in Mistrzejowice and among the hills of Krzesławice. It gave added force to our negotiations with the authorities: The people had a right, we would remind them, to participate in public expressions of their faith in more humane conditions.
I mention all this because our experiences at that time show what a great variety of pastoral responsibilities a bishop can have. These events speak of the living experience of a shepherd in caring for the flock entrusted to him. I have personally experienced the truth of the Gospel saying about the sheep following their shepherd: “They will not follow a stranger because they recognize the voice of their shepherd. He also has other sheep that do not belong to his fold. These too he must lead” (cf. John 10:4–5; 16).
INTELLECTUAL AND PASTORAL RESPONSIBILITIES
“ . . . Full of goodness, filled with all knowledge” (Rom. 15:14)
The Faculty of Theology in the Context of Other University Faculties
As a bishop in Kraków, I felt obliged to defend the faculty of theology at the Jagiellonian University. I considered it my duty. The communist authorities maintained that this faculty had been transferred to Warsaw. Their pretext for this was that in 1953 the Academy of Catholic Theology had been established in the capital, under state control. The battle was won thanks to the fact that an autonomous Pontifical faculty of theology was later established, followed by the Pontifical academy of theology.
Sustaining me throughout this struggle was the conviction that scholarship, in its many different manifestations, is a priceless treasure for a nation. Obviously, in my exchanges with the communist authorities, it was the study of theology that I was arguing for, since its survival was under threat. Yet I never forgot other areas of scholarship, including those which might seem far removed from theology.
With regard to other disciplines, most of my contacts were with physicists. In the course of our many encounters, we would speak, for example, of the most recent discoveries in cosmology. This was a fascinating study, which confirmed for me Saint Paul’s dictum that certain knowledge of God can also be reached through knowledge of the created world (cf. Rom. 1:20–23). Those meetings in Kraków still continue today, from time to time, in Rome or in Castel Gandolfo, thanks to the efforts of Professor Jerzy Janik.
I have always been concerned with providing appropriate pastoral care for scientists. Their chaplain in Kraków for a time was Professor Father Stanisław
Nagy, whom I recently made a cardinal, partly as a way of showing my appreciation for Polish science.
The Bishop and the World of Culture
It is well known that not all bishops are particularly interested in a dialogue with scholars. Many of them give greater priority to their pastoral responsibilites, understood in the broadest sense, than to their rapport with men of learning. In my view, however, members of the clergy, priests and bishops, do well to take the trouble to establish personal contacts with the academic world and its leading figures. A bishop, in particular, should be concerned not only with his own Catholic academic institutions, but should also maintain close links with the whole university world: reading, meeting others, discussing, informing himself about their activities. Obviously, he himself is not called to be a scholar but a pastor. Yet as a pastor, he cannot fail to take an interest in this part of his flock, since it is his task to remind scholars of their duty to serve the truth and thus to promote the common good.
In Kraków I also tried to maintain a good rapport with the philosophers: Roman Ingarden, Władysław
Stróz
.ewski, and Andrzej Półtawski; and with the priest-philosophers: Kazimierz Kłósak, Józef Tischner, and
Józef Z
.yciński. My personal philosophical outlook moves, so to speak, between two poles: Aristotelian Thomism and phenomenology. I was particularly interested in Edith Stein, an extraordinary figure, for her life story as well as her philosophy. Born into a Jewish family in Wrocław, she discovered Christ, was baptized and entered the Carmelite convent, spent some time in the Netherlands, but was deported from there to Auschwitz by the Nazis. She died in a gas chamber and her mortal remains were burned in a crematorium. She had studied with Husserl and had been a colleague of the Polish philosopher Ingarden. I had the joy of beatifying her in Cologne and then canonizing her in Rome. I also proclaimed Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, as a copatron of Europe, together with Saint Bridget of Sweden and Saint Catherine of Siena: three women alongside the three male patrons: Cyril, Methodius, and Benedict.
I was interested in her philosophy. I read her writings, especially Endliches und Ewiges Sein (Finite and Eternal Being), but what fascinated me most was her extraordinary life and her tragic destiny, intertwined with that of millions of other defenseless victims of our era. A disciple of Edmund Husserl, an impassioned seeker after truth, an enclosed nun, a victim of Hitler’s regime: hers is a truly unique human story.
Books and Study
The responsibilities that weigh on a bishop’s shoulders are many. I have discovered this for myself and I know how hard it is to find time for everything. Yet this experience has also taught me the great need a bishop has for recollection and study. He has to have a profound theological formation, constantly updated, and a wide-ranging interest in thought and culture. These are treasures that all thinking people share. For this reason I would like to
say something about the importance of reading in my life as a bishop.
This has always been a dilemma for me: What am I to read? I have always tried to choose what was most essential. So much has been published and not everything is valuable and useful. It is important to know how to choose and to consult others about what is worth reading.
From my earliest childhood I have loved books. It was my father who introduced me to reading. He would sit beside me and read to me, for example, Sienkiewicz and other Polish writers. After my mother died, the two of us remained alone. He continued to encourage me to explore good literature and he never stood in the way of my interest in the theater. But for the outbreak of war and the radical change that it brought, maybe the prospects opening up for me through academic study would have absorbed me completely. When I told Mieczysław Kotlarczyk of my decision to become a priest, he said, “What are you doing? Do you want to waste your talent?” Only Cardinal Sapieha had no doubts.
As a university student I read many different authors. First I turned to literature, especially plays. I read Shakespeare, Molière, the Polish poets Norwid, Wyspiański, and, of course, Aleksander Fredro. My greatest love, however, was acting, appearing on stage, and I often wondered which characters I would like to play. Kotlarczyk and I would amuse ourselves by assigning roles to each other and wondering who could best play a particular part. These are things of the past. Later someone said to me, “You have talent . . . you’d have been a great actor if you’d stayed in the theater.”
The Liturgy is also a kind of acted mysterium, played out on stage. I remember the deep emotion I felt when, as a fifteen-year-old boy, I was invited by Father Figlewicz to the Sacred Triduum at Wawel Cathedral, and I was present for the Tenebrae services, brought forward to the Wednesday afternoon of Holy Week. It was a profound spiritual experience for me, and to this day I find the Triduum extremely moving.
Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way Page 5