Polish Jesuits facing communism and its consequences∗

Abstract

Fifty years ago the Russian troops fighting against the Germans liberated Poland from Nazi occupation and then imposed a materialistic and atheistic system on a nation which had belonged to Catholic culture and tradition since the year 966. The result was a confrontation between the Christian vision of reality with an ideology that left no room for God in social, cultural and political life. The experiment in building a world without God was conducted by various means: persecution and oppression, especially in the first period (until 1956); indoctrination at all levels and in different milieux (in schools, universities, social organisations, publications, the mass media and so on). The instrument for controlling society and spreading atheism was the one-party system with its ideology that penetrated every sphere of life. All this was carried out within a totalitarian system, and although officially the country was a 'People's Democracy' behind this curious tautology lay a quite different reality. It was not the people who governed, but a new class, the 'nomenklatura', possessing unlimited power, riches and other privileges, especially impunity. The slogan 'proletarians of all countries, unite!' was unceasingly repeated, but in fact everything was done to disrupt solidarity among human groups. One of the characteristic traits of communism was falsification of history and also falsification of the truth about everyday life. There was a great gap between life as it really was and life as it was presented in the mass media. The Roman Catholic Church in Poland was confronted with a challenge, one of the greatest in its history. The communist system recognised the Church as its enemy. After an initial period of persecution, however, it became clear that the Church had the inner strength to offer effective resistance, and the communist authorities adopted a more liberal attitude towards religion and religious life. Slowly both the Church and the religious orders started to find their way in the new situation. In the first phase they had been deprived of many of their apostolic works schools, publishing houses, periodicals, retreat houses. However, the Jesuits soon started up new apostolates, especially work in parishes and the teaching of catechetics within the parish. This was a great contribution to the basic, immediate pastoral care which was required, but it also had its negative aspects. The limitation of the field of action and the impossibility of undertaking a serious discernment because the situation was not a normal one led to an identity problem. Sometimes this involved a process of what