“If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.” So my Mom always told me, and I do try to put it in practice, hence today’s entry.
(pronounced more or less “Je-she Po-peal-oosh-ko”) was a priest killed by the Polish communist internal security forces exactly twenty years ago for his outspoken support of freedom.
Popieluszko was an associate pastor in a parish of a working-class suburb of Warsaw. He began giving a “Mass for the fatherland” at the end of every month in which he encouraged his listeners to defend their rights through rejection of violence. As word of his dynamic sermons spread, attendance for his monthly “Mass for the fatherland” swelled, and included people from not just Warsaw but all of Poland.
One can imagine the affect this had on the Communist leadership. In January of 1982, Popieluszko was asleep when, at one thirty in the morning, the buzzer for his door rang. Rather than getting out and checking the window to see who it was, Popieluszko lingered in bed a moment. It probably saved his life, for shortly after that, a brick crashed throw the window with a small explosive device attached. Part of his apartment was damaged, but Popieluszko remained unharmed.
Shortly after that, Popieluszko began receiving death threats by mail. In 1984, as Popieluszko was returning to Warsaw from Gdansk (the city Hitler attacked, thus starting the Second World War), his car was attacked and bombarded with stones. Popieluszko again survived a potentially fatal accident thanks to a professional driver from the Solidarity movement.
Exactly twenty years today, on 19 October 1984, Popieluszko went to Bydgoszcz to preach. Through a student friend, he asked another priest to substitute for him in a student Bible meeting “if [he didn’t] make it back.”
Four security officials were convicted of Popieluszko’s murder in February 1985, with the lightest sentence being fourteen years.
And he never did make it back.
On 30 October, Popieluszko’s body was dragged from an icy reservoir. He had died from choking from his own blood and vomit while being gagged and a rope had been thrown around his neck to weight his body down with a bag of stones.
At his funeral, Lech Walesa said, “Solidarity lives because you gave your life for it, Father Jerzy.”
