Father and Shepherd #13 | The condition of a just system – a new man

fot. Instytut Prymasowski Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego

Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński the Primate of Poland has remained in the memory of Poles as a statesman, defender of faith and freedom of the homeland, advocate of unconditional human dignity.

Social activity in the life and teaching of Cardinal Wyszyński was based on a solid foundation of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. From this position he took up and tried to solve all social, economic and political problems. He lived the deepest conviction that all areas of human life should be permeated and animated by God’s presence and His grace.

The Primate at the centre of systemic, political and economic issues and problems put man and his dignity as a child of God.

“You have to realize that it is about man’s salvation. If the best systems, the greatest human efforts, nowhere, on the whole planet, are able to give full happiness, we have to return – this is not some kind of “retro socio-economic” – to the human person, to the human being. You have to see, understand and save man! This is what the Church does.

A modern man – this fallen giant, chained in the metal sheets of technology, technicism and technocracy that restrain him, which helps him to live and at the same time disturbs him – must regain the freedom of God’s children so that he can stand up, walk freely and fulfil the tasks assigned to him by the Creator. This is the task of the entire human family, to which we also belong.

Therefore, the social issue is much broader. It is no longer just saving the economy, it is not just a matter of some sort of conflict between one social strata or another. It is a cry for rescue for the human person, so that they, while taking advantage of the social and economic order, from modern forms of life and work, do not lose their personality and does not lose their basic moral values, without which nothing can be achieved in the field of temporal life and economic order. “.

The Primate consistently emphasized the dependence of earthly life on the respect for God’s laws.

“We have to break with the conviction that there is no relationship between the national economy and Christian morality. Indeed, there are the imperatives of the moment and the condition for the true renewal of our mortal life. It is here that the responsibility of the children of the Church is born for the renewal and sanctification of mortality, to set an example of how to serve others socially and how to use the fruits of human work and the gifts of the earth. Therefore, even to the earthly world, today we need the revelation of the sons of God (Rom 8:19), who would bring the values of Christian morality into our daily, temporal and material life, whom Jesus Christ, the Son of the heavenly ploughman and the sower of the Gospel of truth and life, holiness will be blessed by. and grace, justice, love and peace. ”

In his courageous social program, the Primate taught that renewal depends not on the change of political and economic systems, but on the rebirth of man.

In 1945 he wrote in the magazine “God’s Order”:

“After the war, governments changed, political systems changed in almost all of Europe. One wave is ebbing, the other is coming. Before each new wave, human longings are to come: that the new ones may be different, better, may they finally be what the world needs. They have other names, proclaim new slogans, condemn the old regimes, pass death sentences on old people, but by condemning they imitate their deeds.

People and slogans change – evil does not cease. The names are meaningless. Whether it will be a monarchy, or a republic, or a democracy, capitalist or Christian system – if they are ruled by old people without conscience, without moral principles – it will be the abuse of signs, names that will protect oneself from poverty. People recognize each other easily on dyed foxes.

We are not even convinced of the country by Catholic name, if its citizens do not think, feel or do Catholic (…) The name does not exempt from honesty and morality. Nor is it a patent for a virtue. In every system there is no shortage of rogues who make ideals, slogans and names a subject of trade and easy profit. ”

This was repeated by the Primate in the early 1980s, when it was widely believed that the fall of communism and the change of the system would automatically bring a new, just order in which people would be respected. The Primate warned too against superficial enthusiasm. He consistently proclaimed that it was not about a new system, but about a new man. This learning was not easy. Systemic and political changes seemed to be a much more effective way of social renewal. On 2^nd February 1981, the Primate in the Gniezno Basilica said:

“You don’t have to look at others, at these or those, maybe at politicians, and demand that they change themselves. Everyone has to start with themselves so that we can truly change. And then when we are all reborn and politicians will have to change, whether they will or not. At the moment, it is not just about changing the social institution in our Homeland, it is not only about the exchange of people, but it is primarily about the renewal of man. The point is for a man to be new, for a “new tribe” to emerge … Because if a man does not change, the most prosperous system, the richest state will not stand, it will be stolen and will perish, because what about – I may say trivially – that the circulating bottle of spirit would pass from the hands of some drunkards to the hands of other drunkards! Let me say even more drastically that the key to the state treasury will pass from the hands of some thieves to the hands of other thieves? It is probably not the case that all thieves should have access to the cash registers and all drinkers to vodka, only that the conscience of everyone should wake up so that we understand our responsibility for the nation that God resurrects ”.

Today we are seeing just how true these prophetic words were. The system has changed, the people in power have changed, and the struggle for social justice and respect for man is still going on. Father Wyszyński saw the education of man as the most important task on his way to social justice:

“There are times ahead when man will have to live to the fullest. Until now, man has led a half-life. Or he lived a mortal life subject to the bondage of money and profit, a selfish life. Maybe he was stripped of his own aspirations and subjected to another slavery – to the service of the state. Both were a mistake. Perhaps only great saints managed to skilfully combine the fullness of human life.

In order to avoid old mistakes, modern man should be brought up comprehensively for himself, for God, for the state, and for the nation and society. Education should concern the entire human person, that is, it should cover his personal and social character. ”

Primate Wyszyński tried to educate man and the nation to such a fullness. It is worth recalling this primate’s school of social thinking. There is a timeless message in it that shows the way to a just future.

“Do not believe that the problem of the crisis of the modern world is a crisis of culture, economy and political system, one way or the other. Not true, these are all the garbage and fall leaves that fall from the trees; winds will spread them over the fields and dumps. These are the little problems! The contemporary problem and the culminating point of the world crisis lies where the mouth of a man who wants to serve his brother meets his feet. Who can and wants to do it, wins and draws development plans for the future. (…)

The wind will bear everything else like rubbish, because people don’t need it! They do not need a new culture, new morality, economy, politics and new systems. They need a new love, a new respect and a new freedom. ”

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