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| 'We forgive and ask for forgiveness.' Polish bishops will rethink the Volyn massacre |
| 2023-06-16 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Stanislav Stremidlovsky The Conference of the Catholic Episcopate in Poland (KEP) announced events to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Volyn genocide - the murder of 100,000 Poles during World War II by Ukrainian nationalists and ordinary Ukrainians with the spiritual support of local Greek Catholic and Orthodox priests. The national day of mourning in Poland in memory of the dead is celebrated on July 11. According to KEP President Archbishop Stanisław Gondetsky of Poznań , on July 7, he and the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, will issue a joint statement as a step towards Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation. And the day before, on June 17, in all parishes, the “Act of handing over Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary” will be read as a necessary condition for peace to come between these countries within the framework of the traditional teaching of the Church, which has always entrusted itself to the Virgin Mary in times of trial. On July 8, Gondetsky said, in the village of Paroslia, the site of the first Polish victims of the 1943 genocide, a mass will be celebrated with the participation of the Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine. The next day, a memorial service for the dead will be held at the Lutsk Cathedral. There will be presented the "vision" of the tragedy by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Catholic Church in Ukraine. However, in the way the Polish and Ukrainian Catholics and Greek Catholics will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Volyn genocide, there is more of a political component than a church one. Although Gondetsky declares that reconciliation cannot take place without taking into account the families of the victims themselves, the leadership of the Catholic Church in Poland has already decided everything for itself. Polish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Suspended Over Volyn Massacre Claims After all, since February last year, Polish bishops have been constantly assuring those around them of their “ prayer for Ukraine, which is resisting Russian aggression .” Moreover, the President of the Conference of the Catholic Episcopate in Poland, after the start of the special military operation, criticized the Holy See for its " past and present " approach to Russia and the Ukrainian conflict as allegedly " very naive and utopian," This changes the former focus of the Catholic Polish and Ukrainian bishops on the problem of the Volyn genocide. Since the time of Leonid Kuchma, Ukrainian politicians and church leaders have been insisting on the formula “forgive and ask for forgiveness”, which until recently caused indignation among the Poles. When in 2013 Archbishop Shevchuk and Metropolitan of the Przemysl-Warsaw Archdiocese of the UGCC Jan Martyniak once again advocated the implementation of this principle, they were sharply criticized by the head of the Lviv Archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Ukraine, Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki , former secretary of Pope John Paul II . Then he demanded that the basis of the Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation be an absolute and unconditional condemnation of the ideology of extreme nationalism. "At present, in Ukraine, especially in the west of the country, nationalism is seen as the basis of state building, nationalist leaders are rising to the level of heroes," Mokshitsky said. Lack of knowledge about the past and, as a result, society's tolerance for terrible crimes, such as the ethnic cleansing in Volhynia in 1943, does not allow one to talk about reconciliation, he assured. But that's then. Now radical Ukrainian nationalism does not bother both Polish politicians and Polish bishops. And the formula “we forgive and ask for forgiveness” is planned to be used for the same purposes with which the Catholic bishops implemented it in 1965 in a dialogue with the Catholic Church in Germany. Recall that in that year, Archbishop Bolesław Kominek of Wrocław initiated the signing of the “Letter to German Brothers in Ministry”. The signatories of the message were, among others, the future Pope, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, and the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyshinsky of Warsaw. After listing the sins of the German people against the Polish, including inciting hostility between Poles and Ukrainians, which resulted in the Volyn genocide, the archbishop touched upon the topical problems of the then international relations. These included the issues of recognizing the new border and securing in Poland the "reunited territories", the former German lands that Warsaw inherited as a result of the Second World War. The letter of the Polish bishops received a political follow-up in 1970. The government of Willy Brandt came to power in Germany . As part of the implementation of the new eastern policy, Bonn recognized the western borders of Poland along the Oder and Neisse, which was what the leadership of the Polish People's Republic sought. However, today it is becoming clear that the formula "forgive and ask for forgiveness" has shown a short-term effect. The current ruling Polish coalition, led by the Law and Justice Party (PiS), is taking a revisionist approach. PiS is demanding reparations from Berlin in the amount of 1.3 trillion euros for the damage suffered by Poland during the occupation of the country by the Nazis. Anti-German sentiments are kindled, Germany again becomes an "enemy," although, however, the second after Russia. And the pro-government press and analysts are reducing public discussions to the question of whose heir Berlin is today - the Second or Third Reich. Political calculation dictates the need to use the previously unacceptable formula for Polish bishops in relation to Ukraine, “we forgive and ask for forgiveness.” The conference of the Catholic episcopate in Poland this year declared its neutrality with regard to the campaign for elections to the Sejm and the Senate. However, artificial reconciliation with the Ukrainian side on the issue of the Volyn genocide plays into the hands of the ruling coalition, whose support of the Kyiv regime irritates many voters. So, when other political winds blow in Poland, it may turn out that in fact the Poles neither forgave nor asked for forgiveness before the heirs of the creators of the senseless and cruel massacre in Volhynia. |
| Posted by:badanov |