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The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945–1955

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Elizabeth Valkenier
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Extract

In poland, unlike the other satellites, Communist policy toward the Church in the past ten years has been largely cautious and at times even conciliatory. There were no wholesale persecutions, no spectacular trials like those of Mindszenty or Stepinac. That is not to say that the Communists were willing to tolerate the rival claims of the Church to shape the mind and soul of the population. They merely found it wiser to pursue their goal slowly. The progress toward that goal, involving among other things the signing of a bilateral agreement, provides some insights into the course and outcome of a seemingly mild Communist policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 1956 , pp. 305 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1956

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References

1 The repudiation of the 1935 Constitution in July, 1944, was of no consequence to the status of the Church since that document upheld the Church provisions of the 1921 Constitution.

2 The Vatican still recognizes the Polish government in London, successor of the wartime exile government.

3 Glos Ludu, 07 20, 1946.Google Scholar

4 Dzis i Jutro, 04 6–13, 1947.Google Scholar

5 Tygodnik Powszechny, 07 21, 1946.Google Scholar

6 Dzis i Jutro, 12 8, 1946.Google Scholar

7 Only extracts were published after censorship. Tygodnik Powszechny, 11 10, 1946.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., April 20, 1947.

9 Ibid.

10 Quoted in The New York Times, 05 24, 1948.Google Scholar

11 During a political trial in December, 1947, the names of two high Church officials were for the first time connected with the underground.

12 Tygodnik Powszechny, 06 6, 1948.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., January 28, 1949.

14 Trybuna Ludu, 03 20, 1949.Google Scholar

15 Tygodnik Powszechny, 04 10, 1949.Google Scholar

16 The Church lost some 375,000 acres.

17 Text in Wierzbianski, B., ed., White Paper on the Persecution of the Church in Poland (London, n.d.), pp. 34–41.Google Scholar

18 Quoted in Kultura (Special Issue no. 5), 07 1953, p. 22.Google Scholar

19 News from Behind the Iron Curtain, 05 1–13, 1951, p. 24.Google Scholar

20 Gsovski, Vladimir, ed., Church and State Behind the Iron Curtain (New York, 1955), p. 205.Google Scholar

21 Tygodnik Powszechny, 03 16, 1952.Google Scholar

22 Text of this letter (May 8, 1953) appears in the White Paper on the Persecution of the Church in Poland, pp. 50–73.Google Scholar

23 Quoted in The London Times, 09 29, 1953.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., October 3, 1953.

25 Tygodnik Powszechny, 10 4, 1953.Google Scholar

26 The Tablet (London), 10 8, 1955.Google Scholar

27 Tygodnik Powszechny, 11 28, 1954.Google Scholar

28 The Commonweal, 09 16, 1955.Google Scholar

29 Dzis i Jutro, 12 4, 1955.Google Scholar

30 In September 1955, the government tried to re-establish contact with the Vatican through Hugo Hanke, a former London Exile Government official who had just switched his allegiance. The London Times, 09 14, 1955.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., September 16, 1955.

32 This, in spite of the fact that in June, 1955, the Holy Office condemned Piasecki's chief books as well as his weekly journal Dzis i Jutro. The Tablet, 07 9, 1955.Google Scholar

33 Tygodnik Powszechny, 12 27, 1953.Google Scholar

34 Dzis i Jutro, 11 13, 1955.Google Scholar