Father and Shepherd #3 | The beginning of priestly ministry

Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. First years of his service as Primate of Poland

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.

Immediately after his ordination, Father Wyszyński became a vicar at the Cathedral in Włocławek. At the same time, he was the diocesan editor of “The Kujawski Word “. He also worked as a prefect in the nursery of the “Cellulose” factory. There he encountered the great poverty of the working class.

“For several months I was the prefect in Włocławek in the nursery of the” Cellulose “factory, about which the books are writing today. Next to the nursery there were huge buildings of a large factory with bundles of precise machines, where workers worked in white coats so as not to dirty the machines. There was a nursery under the monstrosities – an ordinary shack. In order to get to it and not to end up in the mud to your knees, you had to lift your cassock and jump from stone to stone. Everyone did so – me, the teachers and the children. Nevertheless, we brought inside so much mud that we sat and studied in the mud. The children were pale, emaciated, wrapped in all the rags that could be found in the house. I certainly learned more there alone than I managed to teach the children. I tried new teaching methods – I was not a prefect by profession. I was laying out everything with chalk in my hand and amusing the children with drawings on the blackboard. The whole lecture was in drawings. Apparently it is fashionable today, but it was not like that in the year of our Lord 1924 ”.

Perhaps it was these experiences that prompted Father Wyszyński to become interested in a new discipline of knowledge that was just emerging – Catholic social science.

This fascination was expressed in additional socio-economic studies at the Faculty of Law and Economic Sciences at KUL, which he undertook simultaneously with the studies of canon law. From the very beginning, Father Wyszyński attended lectures by Fr. Prof. Antoni Szymański on capitalism and collectivism, labour legislation, social security, the theory of social policy and sociology, and from the fourth year of studies he participated in a scientific seminar in the field of social policy.

During his studies, Father Wyszyński actively participated in the activities of the “Rebirth” association. It was established after Poland regained independence. The aim of “Rebirth” was to penetrate the worldly reality with the spirit of the Gospel.

He remained faithful to the assumptions of Catholic social teaching until the end of his life. It is based on understanding man as a person who is endowed with great dignity by God, has his rights and obligations, and is a social being. Such thinking about man precludes the degeneration of both the individualism which is the basis of the capitalist system and the collectivism which governs communism.

An opportunity to deepen his knowledge of the issues of social science and the activity of the Church was for Father Wyszyński a year-long scientific trip to Western Europe, which he made after obtaining his doctorate in 1929. The main area of his interests during this trip was scientific and social issues.

The route of his one-year journey led through Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. In addition to studies, aimed at collecting the richest possible comparative material from methodology of Catholic social science, Father Wyszyński was interested in the Christian-social activity of the Church, the work of the Catholic Action, and the apostolate of lay people.

The experiences gathered during the one-year research trip around Europe had a great impact on the social and Christian activity that Father Wyszyński undertook in Włocławek. They were also a path to a deeper understanding of social problems which he later encountered as the Primate of Poland.

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