The Włocławek Period of Fr. Stefan Wyszyński’s Pastoral Ministry: Presbyterate and The Time of Priestly-Spiritual Leadership (Part 2)

Abstract

The presented article analyzes the completion of formation for the priesthood in the Seminary and, then, the “Włocławek period” of the pastoral ministry of Fr. Stefan Wyszyński. The author’s interpretation of the source materials aims to display the meaning and significance of that time for the overall activity of Fr. Stefan Wyszyński, the future Primate of Poland. The exploration of the above research is based on analyzing source texts using the historical method to reconstruct historical facts and, after that, their reinterpretation by the inductive-deductive method. Therefore, the above article’s primary research goal is to present the “Włocławek period” of Wyszyński’s priestly life in the context of Poland’s social and political situation. However, the threats posed by the invasion of the then anti-Christian Marxist-Leninist ideology and Nazi Hitlerism with all the horrors of World War II were dire. They threatened the existence of both the Polish Church and the Nation. After all, even in the period of the most brutal repressions, Wyszyński defended each man’s personal dignity and the Christian identity of Poles. Moreover, according to the author of this study, the seminarian formation, pastoral ministry in the Diocese of Włocławek, studies at the Catholic University of Lublin, foreign scholarships, as well as the time of World War II were a kind of testing ground, where Fr. Stefan Wyszyński was able to gain and develop the pastoral experience necessary for his future activity as ordinary of the Lublin diocese, and, later, the Archdiocese of Gniezno and Warsaw, and the Primate of Poland.