Polish left-wing today
Fr Ireneusz Skubis
The first presidential voting is over. Grzegorz Napieralski as the candidate of the left wing is said to have the biggest success and the society is said to begin supporting this political option again. It seems irrational since it is known that the communist left wing led our country to ruin, realising the Kremlin’s instructions. We still have the recent experiences of the Polish People’s Republic governed by General Wojciech Jaruzelski who became famous by imposing the marshal law, which has not been legally settled up, as a way of communication with the nation. We are still experiencing the actions of some communist comrades. Our society still follows that way of thinking in their lifestyle. Today we speak about the heirs of those times that they are a new left wing – liberal, open to the world and man, progressive. And everyone would like to win Napieralski’s favour as far as next voting is concerned.
I would like to draw your attention to the example of Spain governed by José Luis Zapatero, who has assumed that he must do his best to eliminate the Church and Christian morality from social life. And this country, which has always been Catholic, began introducing bills threatening the fundamental Christian values. Napieralski, staring at the Spanish leader of the revolution, would like this vision of Poland, too. Here are the theses he presented during his presidential campaign: cancelling the concordat, removing religious instruction from schools, abortion of the unborn as woman’s choice, refunding in vitro procedure from the state budget and legalisation of homosexual relationships. These are only some issues I have put down; certainly, there are more of them.
Let us notice: the concordat is seen as Poland’s success – after many years of the regime that focused on struggle against the Church the concordat normalised the relationships between the Church and the state and on its basis neither Polish Catholics (the majority) nor the state suffer no longer. Therefore, it seemed that such an official agreement normalising the relationships between the state and the Church did not disturb anyone and yet, now it disturbs Napieralski and his followers.
The next issue – removing religious instruction from schools. Consider that religious instruction is indeed teaching faith but it is also teaching Christian morality, which is universal morality because it is based on man’s nature. Religion teaches young people how to live, teaches social life according to moral norms and at the same time it introduces culture, created by Christianity, into the culture of our nation and civilisation of the whole continent.
One should also say that religion is not something esoteric, out of the blue. Religion has its rational justification, its basis in nature and man’s needs and it helps millions of people live.
The next issue – abortion. The Church will always state that every human being, even the unborn one created in woman’s womb, has the right to life from conception till natural death – it is an expression of some obviousness, guaranteed by the Christian commandment, ‘You shall not kill!’, and something in man’s nature that causes man shrink from annihilating any life. The left wing, hiding behind the catchy motto of woman’s right, violates the rights of the smallest and most defenceless, who we all should help in every way. There is some strange contradiction in all of that. In abortion a child is treated as some unnecessary ballast, a worthless foetus that only endangers woman and we speak about in vitro method that it is so important and giving man the biggest happiness that the entire laboratory procedure should be financed from the state budget. In general, the Church opposes artificial fertilisation since choosing one life you kill another. Besides, we are to finance the very expensive in vitro fertilisation and we have so many people who suffer from chronic cancerous diseases and which are not included in the plans of refunding their treatment costs. We all know the common lack of funds for many basic matters in our health service. There are other possibilities to solve the problem of infertility: adoption, foster homes and other medical treatments.
Finally, Napieralski wants to legalise homosexual relationships – two men and two women. I need not comment that. And the Polish revolutionist, a representative of the new Polish left wing, proposes such a programme for us. Of course, all of this is put into a proper and encouraging media ‘colourful paper.’
I think that all Poles should consider what the left wing means for them – since it is not only Mr Napieralski’s private, personal programme. Democracy means that we must be tolerant towards those who think differently. But if they intend to impose their way of thinking on the nation – the way of certain minority – we cannot allow that. Poland has drawn her strength from the higher values which the country has followed for ages. Poland has her own identity; it is a homeland of Christians, homeland of Christian families, mothers and fathers – happy and beautiful people. And we want to be ourselves and do not look at the contemporary revolutionists, like Zapatero, who carelessly manipulate millions of people’s lives, promising paradise on earth without any responsibility.
"Niedziela" 27/2010