Wpływ wyboru papieża Jana Pawła II na stosunek władz państwowych do Kościoła katolickiego na Pomorzu Zachodnim. Metody i przykłady
Impact of the election of Pope John Paul II on the attitude of state authorities to the Catholic Church in Western Pomerania. Methods and examples

Summary/Abstract: On December 16, in 1978, the election of the Polish Pope John Paul II awakened the Catholic Church in Poland and the society itself. The first pilgrimage of the Pope to Poland in 1979, that couldn’t be realized in 1966 as a pilgrimage of the Pope Paul VI, encouraged Polish people as well as the Church. The election of the Polish cardinal as a pope caused in Poland the beginning of a real “boom” of vocations to priesthood, also in Paradyz (Paradyż) Seminary. Even communist authorities were not able to control it. The first pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to His homeland and the next, awakened the conscience of Polish nation, as G. Weigel emphasizes in his publications. “The birth” of “Solidarity” was the fruit of this first pilgrimage. Over the following 1980s, the Church and the society in Poland, and especially on the so-called Regained Territories, lived in the spirit and atmosphere of both – papal pilgrimages and the peregrination of the miraculous image of Our Lady of Czestochowa (Częstochowa). However, the communist system was not going to give up. It intensified on the large scale the operations of the Security Service, expressed in treacherous murders of people of opposition. The example of such oppression was the family of Marian Jurczyk, also people and priests of the Catholic Church, like priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, murdered treacherously. However, such action only intensified in society and in clergy the spirit of fighting with the system. Hence the days of the communists were numbered. The regulatory election in June 1989 only confirmed this fact. Unfortunately, in 1990 it was not possible to finally cut off the people of the passing system and its mentality; it have caused the consequences, which were and still are in various areas of political and social life, and especially in the media, remaining in the hands of people of the passing system.

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