October 23, 1978: the historic embrace between Pope John Paul II and his great friend Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Archbishop of Warsaw and Primate of Poland
At the first preparatory meeting of the conclave, Cardinal Wyszynski, Archbishop of Warsaw, reported that 300,000 Poles—including 7,500 university students—planned to walk in a pilgrimage to the famous shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa to pray to the cardinals for divine guidance, so the Church might select a new pope suited to the difficult conditions of the time. A loud round of applause from the other cardinals celebrated Most Rev. Wyszynski’s words.
There were many reasons for this.
First, the initiative’s markedly spiritual character rests and refreshes minds saturated with the socio-economic obsession that has recently invaded the Church.
Furthermore, it is especially impressive that religious fervor in Poland ignites in such a large crowd the courage needed for the long journey (Warsaw to Czestochowa = 149 miles) beneath the heavy layer of oppression from the communist regime, considering the malnutrition common in any communist economy.
The mention of the 7,500 university students is particularly compelling.
In the eyes of the future pope’s electors, Most Rev. Wyszynski thus appeared as a charismatic figure or almost so, who successfully preserved his faithful from the onslaught of atheism, which was already his legend. It has long been said, and still reverberates in the Western media of the most diverse ideological positions, and (infinitely more importantly) is constantly whispered in the free world’s most varied intellectual and social circles, that the Polish prelate has found a formula for coexistence between the Church and communism.
Since this formula offers a significant convenience for humanity by preventing religious tensions that could lead to a war between East and West, the natural question is whether the legend surrounding the Archbishop of Warsaw will make him “papabile.”
The cardinals’ applause that greeted him can well be interpreted as approval of his policy toward communism. From this perspective, it does not seem far-fetched to imagine that, given the natural difficulties of finding a candidate capable of obtaining all or almost all of the votes, the Sacred College will choose to acclaim the Archbishop of Warsaw as pope, celebrated by the right, the center, and the left alike.
In this case, a symbolic, programmatic man would ascend to the throne of St. Peter.
Symbolic of what? With which program?
That remains to be defined.
I will try to do so by presenting Cardinal Wyszynski’s line of action’s most applauded aspects:
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Poland is the most compact and influential Catholic bloc within the Iron Curtain, with its thirty million Catholics. Since, at the end of the last war, Westerners ingloriously abandoned (to say the least) the heroic resistance of Polish Catholics, who were both anti-Nazi and anticommunist, this large bloc was buried in the dark night of Communist domination.
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To become effective, Soviet domination faced two obstacles: the Poles’ longstanding aversion to Russian colonialism and, most importantly, the fundamental incompatibility between the highly Catholic Polish population and the Marxist regime, which, by definition, is atheistic, amoral, and egalitarian. These obstacles forced Moscow’s communists to choose between two paths: either recolonizing Poland by brutally subjecting it to Russian proconsuls, and at the same time unleashing a Nero-like religious persecution in the country; or granting it a “minimum” of autonomy, governing it through Polish rather than Russian communists, while at the same time allowing a “minimum” of freedom for the Church.
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Clearly, the second formula was the only viable option. Especially considering Napoleon’s rule, everything can be achieved with bayonets, except establishing a stable throne on their tips. For the Soviets, however, political wisdom meant choosing the second formula while deciding what “minimum” to give to Polish national sentiment and Faith. The tricky part was whether the former and the latter would accept a “minimum” that would only let them survive in such fragile conditions that, eventually, the communists would wipe out both the Catholic Faith and national sentiment. Otherwise, for the Soviets, offering this “minimum” would be a surrender.
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Seeing the situation exactly as his communist opponents did, Cardinal Wyszynski allegedly accepted this “minimum” but did so wisely, taking full advantage to keep the Faith alive. At the same time, he responded courageously against all communist attempts to reduce this meager “minimum” gradually. Sagaciousness and courage are the two virtues that shine in the Wyszynski legend.
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By sparing Poland the horrors of religious persecution, Wyszynski is said to have preserved for his people the priceless gift of the Faith.
It is undoubtedly such a brilliant result that a legend has grown around it: Wyszynski, the “Cunctator,” meaning the compromiser, of whom one could say, like his famous Roman counterpart, Fabius, that “cunctando restituit rem.” By compromising, Wyszynski, too, would have saved the public cause.
Legends create an unappreciative environment for specific types of analysis. If the Polish cardinal managed to defend the small area of freedom the communists allowed the Church, inch by inch, it would have been because he always had effective means at his disposal. In this particular case, those means were reduced to threatening to turn Poland into a human furnace similar to Catholic Spain during Bonaparte’s revolutionary and anticlerical troops’ invasion of the peninsula. If this threat kept the Soviets within their boundaries, it raises the question of whether the Cardinal Cunctator would have been better off as a Cardinal Crusader. In other words, if he had unleashed on the Soviet rulers the storm of religious resistance that brought Napoleon himself to his knees.
This logically compelling question raises many sub-questions that the Western public lacks enough information to answer. For instance, would the fighting spirit so vibrant in the Spanish be lost in the unfortunate yet heroic post-war Poland? Could a surge of epic and sacred nonconformity among the Polish people receive support from Anglo-American allies, similar to how 19th-century England (driven primarily by very British interests, it must be said) supported the Spanish by sending Wellington to the Peninsula? And so on.
Every legend is brilliant, attractive and enchanting, but also aggressive. Woe betide anyone who tries to argue with it. I will not be so reckless as to do so in this last part of the article. Nor am I motivated by a desire to question this legend, given the possibility that the Cardinal Cunctator might be acclaimed pope.
Only hope endures well alongside legends. Let me express mine. If Wyszynski the Cunctator sits on the supreme throne of St. Peter, he will multiply sagacity by sagacity, courage by courage, and legend by legend, offering the world the breathtaking display of becoming a new Urban II, the blessed leader of the First Crusade.
A rash minimalism, perhaps suitable for the Archbishop of Warsaw, is not appropriate for the successor of Peter, at least for now.
In fact, the 600 million Catholics in the free world may have even greater hopes than their beloved and glorious Polish brothers. For them, it is not about winning a small place in the sun, half-crushed under the Soviet boot. Quite the opposite, it is about preventing that boot from daring to crush what remains free in the world—a mission of apostolic daring entirely made up of what Camões called “Christian boldness” (Os Lusiadas, Canto VII, Stanza 14). That is what I expect from Paul VI’s successor—and along with me, many millions of Catholics!
The Cardinal Cunctator appears radiant with the glory of legendary “Christian daring” while defending a “minimum.” How we wish he would shine on the throne of St. Peter with the same “Christian daring,” but this time in defense of a “maximum.” “Ad majorem Dei gloriam” – “For the greater glory of God” was the motto of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
All the more so because, nowadays, the “maximum” can still be achieved, perhaps without shedding Christian blood, which the Crusaders so splendidly and generously shed.
October 23, 1978: the historic embrace between Pope John Paul II and his great friend Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Archbishop of Warsaw and Primate of Poland
Note: After John Paul I’s brief pontificate (August 26, 1978, to September 28, 1978), in the election of October 16 of that same year, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla was elevated to the papal throne as Pope John Paul II (cf. Um homem, uma obra, uma gesta – Homenagem das TFPs a Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira [A Man, a Work, an Epic – The TFPs’ Tribute to Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira], EDIÇÕES BRASIL DE AMANHÃ, São Paulo, 1989, Part II, Section II, no. 10).