SMOLEŃSK THOUGHTFULNESS
CARDINAL STANISŁAW NAGY SCJ
First of all, it is descending to the abyss of the national tragedy and plunging into a sea of pains of those who have been touched by the tragedy. From these both bleeding wounds streams of the Polish pain are flowing which are constantly bothering the social organism of the Nation. And it is a strange pain, on the one hand - still not expiated blame for what happened and for how people behaved towards this national tragedy.
But this Smolensk pain not only is tearing Poles' hearts in their suffering but it also unites them spontaneously. Its significant symbol was a spontaneous real flood of those paying an after-death tribute to the President killed for the sake of the Polish matter and a dramatic battle about the Cross on the square in front of the President's Palace. The complement was a funeral route leading from St. Mary's Church in Cracow to the Royal Wawel Castle hill.
But the tragedy from two years ago involves also another tragedy of the Nation at the Vistula and Odra rivers which is well-expressed by the Biblical formula:
'A sign to whom they will oppose' (see Lucas 2,34)
What does it mean? Who is it about? Well, there are people in Radom and Warsaw, Kielce and Katowice, etc., who do not believe in the Smolensk tragedy any more! They treat it as an accident at work, something which happened and passed into the past, and undergoes normal laws of forgetfulness. And there is also thesis according to which the issue did not exist at all, or it was so minimized that it must be only forgotten.
We ask whether these people are still Poles. What are they doing on this piece of Europe which is called Poland?
I am afraid of such questions, but is it possible to avoid them?
'The truth will liberate you...' (see J8,32)
The tragedy at Smolensk has also a dramatic derivative. It is a question how it was caused. This question was tearing hearts together with growing pain caused by a growing awareness of the fact and dimensions of the tragedy. From the first moments there were appeals for as much truth as possible, for not sweeping it under a carpet and for avoiding hasty opinions and insinuations. But one could also hear calls for a hurry in the investigation to the very truth.
At the same time, unscrupulous gibe of this truth started, not saying about a rude blurring the traces and eliminating the roads for getting to know it. But, after all, the truth, so close, will not allow anybody to stifle it. And from time to time, it shines with the bareness of its obviousness. Will it appear in its whole threat? One thing is certain: we must care about it for the sake of those who our homeland has lost.
(AA)
"Niedziela" 19/2012