Publisher’s Note: This essay was meant to be included as a foreword for Love & Social Justice, the English translation of “Miłość i sprawiedliwość społeczna,” a collection of Bl. Wyszyński’s writings on various themes of Catholic social teaching during World War II. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get this essay to the printers in time, but with the kind permission of Dr. Klocek we offer it here for our readers. May we learn from Bl. Wyszyński the art of prudence.
European civilization, from time to time, has brought forth leaders who not only rose to guide their own countries well, but also to contribute to the continued flourishing of the moral example of European culture generally. The last century, which brought such evil, destruction, and pain to Europe, also brought forth genuine statesmen. Even though he was not a political leader, never won an election, or never led a political party or coalition of parties, Stefan Wyszynski exemplified those rare qualities of statesmanship which are recognized beyond the boundaries of any particular country. Even though he chose the calling of a priest as his life’s vocation from his childhood, he was attracted to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church especially in the social world. That interest led to a long and deep reflection upon the ways in which Christian virtues spill out beyond narrow doctrinal lines, and contribute to social and cultural advances. When called to assume leadership within the Church as a bishop, and then as his country’s leading bishop, even though he was quite young among episcopal peers in a fraternity which usually respects age and experience, Fr. Wyszynski was well equipped from his study of the long history of social thought within the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole.
When he became a bishop in 1946, he chose the motto, “Soli Deo,” meaning, “To God Alone.” To be human means that there are some things (worship, the Lord’s Day, respect for moral limits, the higher part of one’s mind) that can only be given to God, not to any other person, or group (including communities such as the State), or any created thing. Doing that dehumanizes man, who always himself aspires to what is higher and divine. Well knowing the ideology of the Communists, whose regime (allied to the huge Communist power to the immediate east of Poland, the U.S.S.R.) was about to be imposed on Poland, Wyszynski realized that respect for this boundary was going to be crucial for the defense of the Church and of the human person going forward.
Well-grounded in the knowledge that the Church truly is sovereign and gets her authority directly from God, Wyszynski knew that the most important thing for the Church was to keep herself– her sacraments, her beliefs (and the teaching of those beliefs generally, and especially to the young), her clergy and ministers—pure. He knew that the struggle Poland was entering was going to be long. He saw what was happening to Catholic bishops and priests (as well as other religious leaders) in neighboring Communist-ruled countries: some were arrested, some executed, and some disappeared. He knew that the history of Church-State conflict, which was not at all new in European history, demonstrated that political leaders too often are focused on short term, or unimportant and unmeaningful, gains, while the Church always has patience to wait, as long as she is able to survive in her members: “History demonstrates this. The state possesses physical strength that it can and has abused with respect to the Church. In this respect, the Church is not a threat. Its impact is spiritual and thus has long-term consequences.” [Ch. 22] The Church eschews coercive power because she wins over and transforms the minds and hearts—the souls—of human persons. This achievement is much more solid and lasting than the policies of the State, backed up by the State’s material power.
Wyszynski’s leadership, especially when evaluated from the perspective of the sometimes controversial decisions—the 1950 agreement, the statement of forgiveness between the Polish and West German episcopal conferences, the counsel to the Solidarnosc union to concentrate its effort on building a good organization as a union rather than to be provoked into political fights with the regime—can be seen as illustrating a genuine prudential strategy focused on “winning” over time and not dissipating energy, resources, or effort in tangential struggles. Long-term winning would involve genuine progress in greater respect for the human person, and thus human rights and consequently eventual regime transformation. In 1942, when this book was written, Wyszynski and his audience knew that Poles were brave and courageous, even to the point of self-sacrifice. But what would be needed for the future would be survival under a corrupt regime: physical survival to be sure, but more importantly also moral survival. This would mean not compromising oneself and one’s integrity. Wyszynski knew that a false ideology ultimately would be unsatisfying, if Poles could still be reminded—through the liturgy, their national culture so closely tied to the Faith, their priests and religious– of the identity that the nation had chosen, and reaffirmed over and over in its historical experience. Hence, the Church would emphasize these elements in her activity.
During the Stalinist period, lasting in Poland until the death of Boleslaw Bierut just after Nikita Khrushchev’s speech to the 20th party congress of the U.S.S.R. Communist party in 1956, the internal organization and freedom of the Church herself was most important. The Church could never allow herself to become a tool of the State: “Can the State exercise spiritual authority? From whom did it receive spiritual authority? When the State usurps this authority over souls, it hands it over to the police.” [Ch. 22] It is to this danger that the 1953 “Non possumus” letter of the Polish episcopate is addressed. Church leaders could not permit a corrupt state with its secret police to bribe clergy, recruit within, or penetrate the Church in order to divide her against herself. If the Church could remain herself, she would win. Thus she had to resist the regime’s efforts at control. But the struggle over the loyalty of Church members would be long. How could they remain patient? How could Church leaders sustain their faith?
The “Great Novena,” the nine-year period of preparation for the Millennium anniversary celebration of Poland’s acceptance of Christianity in 1966, while primarily an effort to promote spiritual and religious renewal, also engaged the attention of Poles to the connection between their country and its culture and the Roman Catholic Church. And it could do this in a not directly political way, thus competing against the Communist regime on favorable ground. A novena that lasts nine years is perhaps the way to address the need especially for patience and time. The usual novena that one prays lasts nine days. But one does not often celebrate a one thousandth anniversary! Events all over the country, including the travel of a copy of the image of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, blessed by the Pope (here, too, wisely emphasizing Poland’s international position because of the Church), and recalling the details of the interconnections between the country—and its cities, provinces, towns, and countryside—with the Church, as a way of reflecting, renewing, and going forward, was an excellent way of non-politically strengthening Church belief and practice. There were certainly political implications unfavorable to a materialistic ideology imposed by the hostile neighboring power and its Polish followers, but they were indirect.
The Novena coincided with the period of preparation before, and then with the meeting of, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Thus, it complemented what the entire Church was doing by reflecting back on her history in order to present her teachings in the best form to be understood and accepted again in a time in which technology, communications, economic wealth, science, and many other areas of human achievement had advanced and transformed daily human life. Poland’s Catholic Church was united with the rest of world Catholicism in a way, defeating one of the tools of totalitarian and authoritarian power which seeks to communicate that its subjects are alone and isolated. Also, Poland’s bishops took an active part in the Council, including Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow (promoted to Archbishop of Krakow during the Council in 1964) Karol Wojtyla. Wojtyla spoke formally at the Council in favor of the Church recognizing religious liberty, based on his experience in coming from a country officially espousing Marxist-Leninist ideology, but also on his Thomistic personalist philosophy which he had been developing as a university professor and in his ministry to college students before he became a bishop. The Council discussion on religious liberty culminated in the passage of the Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, at the close of the Council in December 1965. This new emphasis on religious liberty was welcome to Catholics (and others) suffering under Communist persecution, but it also caused qualms for more traditional Catholics who preferred a privileged position for Catholics within their own countries. Catholics in many places are still struggling with how to adjust to this situation.
It was during the Council, at a time in which Catholicism projected its universal identity through plenary meetings containing most of the world’s Catholic bishops, that the letter of the Polish bishops to the German episcopal conference offering and asking for forgiveness was written. Coming at a time in which Catholics were focusing both on unity within the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the possibility of greater unity among all Christians through the ecumenical movement, such an initiative between the Catholic bishops of neighboring countries as a further step on a long road of reconciliation appeared timely and normal. The fact that the Communist regime sought to incite anti-Church opinion over an example of moral leadership draws attention again to the advantage that religious leaders have over politicians in the ability to exercise genuine prudential leadership. Church leaders can lead their people by aiming toward higher moral and spiritual goods, and achieving these will have real and genuine benefits for their people as well as the country, and Church leaders are not aiming for votes or to gain credit. Reconciliation among enemy countries (especially neighbors) after a great war was important for many European countries (including as well the core European Economic Community countries which were in the first phase of building their institutions, which eventually became the European Union, at this time). Roman Catholicism can never be only a one-country church, since it has a universal focus, leadership, and orientation. A Catholic Church leader in one country, as one of the highest elements of his leadership, must focus internationally, in union first with the Pope, and also with other local Catholic churches. Primate Wyszynski was doing this. Also, the vitality of the Church in Poland, demonstrated by the events of the Great Novena, was being noticed around the world. The world’s religious press was focused on Rome, and the participation of a large bloc of Catholic bishops from a country within the Communist bloc drew friendly, as well as curious, attention.
The internal strength of the Catholic Church in Poland after the Council and the Millennium celebrations culminated in the election of Cardinal Wojtyla to the Papacy in 1978. The new Pope expressed his interest in travelling back to Poland for the scheduled commemoration of the 900th anniversary in 1979 of the martyrdom of St. Stanislaus, the Bishop of Krakow who had been killed by the King during a church-state conflict, with the resonances that such a conflict had in the Marxist-Leninist Polish regime. The trip had such a massive impact that it helped sustain the series of peaceful strikes in the summer of 1980 which resulted in the formation and recognition of the free trade union “Solidarnosc” in August 1980. Wyszynski and the Church exercised a moderating role over the union. In meetings with its leader, Lech Walesa, and at lower levels and in public statements, the Church sought to encourage union leaders to build an effective organization in preference to engaging in disputes or debates over various political issues with the regime. Challenging the regime over things which it could not really change, such as the requirements of Poland’s forced alliance with the U.S.S.R., was unwise when compared with the genuine victories which could be winnable if the union could effectively mobilize and control (with discipline) a large and broad social movement.
It is not surprising that a Church leader could be, more than an average layman, a better exemplar of a genuinely prudential statesman because of his ability, enhanced in this case by ministering as a priest and bishop, and thus living more obviously within a sacramental and supernatural world, to see and recognize all reality, which is outwardly-focused and includes the supernatural, better. Saintly and mystical laymen would also be able to do this, certainly. But moral and political leadership has to take place in a concrete reality. Politicians are too often enveloped in a busy, day-to-day maelstrom of short-term details. False prudence (akin to Machiavellianism), which focuses on lower human appetites and desires, often obscures an openness to the larger picture surrounding persons as well as social groups and communities. Lay statesmen can see this, but it requires discipline to see metaphysical vistas in the middle of worldly cares and political arguments and pressures. Kings and temporal rulers used to be surrounded by religious traditions and customs in previous centuries that forced them to think and encouraged them to act from a God-centered perspective, but these traditions had mostly disappeared.
Furthermore, the natural prudence that is the result of common day-to-day experience tends to lessen cognizance of supernatural realities, while genuine prudence is open to, and even inviting of, charity, which raises natural prudence to a supernatural vision.[1] In this way, it is also open to hope and optimism, even in the midst of grave difficulties. This is not to say that bishops should be focused on prudential and political decision-making, but rather that the historical role of a primate as a church leader in some countries of Europe, including Poland, provided a good incumbent such as Stefan Wyszynski the perspective to awaken (or re-awaken) elements of the national tradition in its widest understanding better than mediocre or unvirtuous politician-allies of the local hegemonic power. When churchmen only rarely speak politically, too, their words carry greater weight and respect among the people. It can sometimes be well within propriety for religious leaders to speak out in this way, especially if they articulate a deep historical identity and avoid becoming involved in political details, which should wisely be left for politicians.
While Wyszynski died during the upheaval occurring at the time of the founding and organization of the “Solidarnosc” trade union, which would end with a several year period of martial law, Pope St. John Paul II in many ways continued Wyszynski’s prudent policy in his own interactions with Poland during this period (which included papal trips in 1983 and 1987). He usually exhorted the Poles to avoid violence, but not to cease peacefully demanding their rights. On several occasions he used the exhortation of St. Paul as a kind of motto: “Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21) This patience, mostly followed by opposition supporters, in not acting in ways that would allow an excuse for greater regime oppression instead encouraged more creative ways to show opposition, and for the opposition to take various forms on many different fronts. It ended up sustaining a struggle against a regime built on dishonesty and lies, and giving energy for creative change when the U.S.S.R. ceased supporting its clients in Poland enough to keep them in power. And the Polish example was a beacon to other Communist countries and their own oppressed peoples. Bl. Stefan Wyszynski’s statesmanship can thus furnish future times and future leaders with lessons in genuine prudence, which is patient, disciplined, and always focused on the most important and most lasting goals in the midst of the sometimes dark and seemingly permanent conditions of political repression.
[1] See Josef Pieper’s analysis of the Thomistic teaching on prudence in Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980, pp. 3–40.