A Priest from Poland

A refugee from Communist Poland recently reached Munich. He was a Roman Catholic priest, 30-odd years old, and he had come to tell West and East, via Radio Free Europe, about the struggle of his church for survival. In Poland, a strongly Catholic country, the Communists have not dared to outlaw religion, but they hope to suffocate it by continual restrictions. The priest's story:

Thugs were hired to beat him, and his congregations were riddled with secret police spies. Most organized parish activities were forbidden. Nonetheless, he felt, persecution had made the church in Poland stronger. "So many times," he noted, "workers have said to me, 'We have not gone to church for years, but now, when they forbid us to do so, we will go to spite them.' The more cautious do not frequent their parish churches, but go to others at a distance from their homes. I had more men than women in my church, an unusual event."

The Children. "The worst trouble," the priest said, "is with the youngest children in the primary schools. A little girl once asked me: 'Father, why do those bad Americans poison the poor Korean children? Why do they put insects in the water?' You have to be in Poland to appreciate the difficulty of answering such questions. Some crazy [Communist] teacher had stuffed the children's ears with this nonsense. If I say that the teacher lies, the child will tell her at the first opportunity, 'Father said you were lying.' That is why I patted the child on the head and said, 'Korea is far away and it's hard for me to tell. I don't know all about it. I think the Red Cross will examine this matter and tell us what is true. But we have assembled here to learn the catechism and to prepare ourselves for the first Holy Communion . . .'

"One's heart breaks when sometimes a little schoolboy approaches and asks: 'Is it true, Father, that before the war children in Poland died of hunger?' or 'Do children in England have to work in the mines?' The main weight of the fight against the lies and moral distortion has moved from the school to the home. This duty now falls on the overworked mothers."

The Compromise. Perhaps the most difficult part of life in a Communist country is to keep peace with oneself. "Nearly every day," said the priest, "a man is forced to compromise with evil and disturb the peace of mind that is within him. By frequently making compromises, he becomes morally insensible . . .

"People die behind prison walls quite unnoticed, and without religious comfort." He once witnessed the execution of an 18-year-old boy condemned by a military court. When the soldiers in the firing squad deliberately shot over the boy's head, the prison governor rushed up to kill him with his pistol. "I am not responsible," the governor shrieked at the priest, "I do as I am ordered."

Rome expects the Catholic clergy to remain at their posts in Communist countries; the priest left because he feared arrest. He knew that, if captured, he would be forced to give out the names of members of his flock who were hostile to the regime. ("I have learned by experience what these agents can do, especially those trained in Russia.")

Disguising himself, he crossed the frontier and moved westward, begging food and shelter on the way: "When I saw a cross on the wall, I knocked on the door. Where there was a cross in the house, there was also a bite of bread for the refugee and a spot to sleep . . . God blessed me, and here I am in the free world."

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