Call for normality in Poland, for normality in Europe
Fr. IRENEUSZ SKUBIŚ
On 12 January 2005 Prof. Rocco Buttiglione gave a very important lecture at the Catholic University of Lublin. The subject of the lecture was 'The primacy of conscience in politics' (The text of the lecture was published in 'Niedziela' on 23 January.) Prof. Buttiglione thinks that having rejected the candidature of a Catholic for a European commissioner the European Parliament showed that it aimed at establishing a new orthodoxy, some kind of a new atheistic religion of the European Union. 'Is Europe afraid of or ashamed of mentioning the name of God in the preamble to its Constitution; Europe that wants to discriminate Christians, reducing them to citizens of second category; Europe that aims at a mild suicide and Europe that is as blind by self-hatred as to regard as enemies those who would like to save it - is this Europe still our Europe? Does staying in such a Europe make any sense? - Prof. Buttiglione asks. I think it is an important topic - conscience in politics. Politicians' conscience plays a very important role in passing laws of the entire European continent; it is also something very important in our Fatherland. Inadequate activities, which are in accordance with conscience, make us ask about normality. Since we notice strange trends in Europe today, for example legalisation of homosexual relationships, euthanasia - killing the old, the sick or the infirm; and abortion - killing the unborn, and things like these. These are very important problems, which were completely unknown in Europe not so long ago. As far as the killing of unborn children is concerned, the law was introduced in Bolshevik Russia and all people were astonished and broken down. Today this law has taken over Europe as something ordinary, and even humanitarian because 'the woman's good is taken into account'. How terrifying were the reports about the actions of Hitler who had ordered to kill the old, the sick and the infirm! Today Europe is taking the criminal Nazi actions as its own. We are terrified by all these actions. We are also terrified by Europe's getting old - fewer and fewer children are born, and people from other parts of the globe are populating this continent. There are more and more Muslims in Europe and they introduce their culture. We ask unintentionally: 'What will happen to Europe?'... Therefore, it is important to get to know the thoughts of wise and responsible people, Europeans of considerable intellectual stature, and undoubtedly Prof. Rocco Buttiglione is such a personality.
Now I would like to refer to the attacks on the television programme of Janek Pospieszalski entitled 'It is worth talking'. Some anti-Catholic circles and representatives of feminist movements are protesting against it very rabidly. But it seems to us that Pospieszalski presents an ordinary Polish life, naturally he does not support feminist movements. The ordinary thing is that there is a family, that there is a marriage - relationship between a man and a woman, that the conceived life should be respected and protected. Poland is a Catholic country and its Catholics, who pay the license fee as the largest group in Poland, have the right to express freely their views in public. As a matter of fact they do it in a very delicate way and the author of the programme invites people who voice various opinions and it is them who sometimes react quite impolitely to the arguments of the Catholic option and of the speaker. One should notice the objectivity of the programme and consider the fact that we all have the right to share our opinions. (After each programme 'Niedziela' gives a summary of the main views in order to highlight the significance of the problem in question.)
I think that Janek Pospieszalski's programmes irritate some people because the programmes are not politically correct. But these are very ordinary and normal programmes. Therefore, we regard both the attacks on Mr Pospieszalski and on Prof. Buttiglione as attacks against normality - against normality in Europe and against normality in Poland. It is high time that Catholics gather their strengths to salvage this normality in Poland and Europe.