HOPE IN GOD AND THE NATION

SAYS F. TADEUSZ RYDZYK CSsR

Just after the public hearing in the matter of the Television Trwam in the European Parliament in Brussels, the ‘Sunday’ was the first Polish weekly to hear lively impressions of F. Tadeusz Rydzyk CSsR about this meeting. We publish a few long pronouncements of the director of the most popular Catholic radio station, which were heard by Fr. Paweł Rozpiątkowski.

About the public hearing in Brussels and the recent attacks on the Holy Father

– We are looking for a solution everywhere. We must look for help because the problem is big. If we already belong to the European Union and we are a family of families, a family of the nations, so why not there? Especially that the public hearing was suggested to us by the MPs of the EU: Professor Mirosław Piotrowski and Zbigniew Ziobro. We must make it public, appeal to various international centres because decisions are made also in Brussels. It is written in documents, there are regulations against exclusion and constraint with word – it is very clearly said about it. So, we are going there, only I wonder whether it will help. Looking at this all, associating facts, I will use a comparison of Fr. Inf. Skubiś: Among the governing elite there is a consensus to the Chinese Church, that is, dependent on dissidents, the state, authority system but not to the free Catholic Church.

Let’s have a look! Who is the most attacked in the world? The Holy Father. Looking completely in a human way – who is endangered by the pope? And let’s take the recent event which was the World Family Congress in Milan: one and a half million of people, a vast group which cannot be unnoticed....And what? Practically silence. Also in Catholic Poland. Which media were talking about it? I was talking with different journalists and asked why they were not showing it. – But we were showing it. – What were you showing? Even if you were, only fragments are being shown, covered with marginal negative issues. We remember this last Sunday of May very lively. The event in Milan. The Old Pope was gathering 1.5 million people - and silence in Poland, whereas the margin, the ill margin of four-thousand people and homosexual parades are being made public. It is something more than a phobia of Christianity, and we are persuaded to believe in homophobia. It is an evident and strong attempt of marginalising the Catholics, Christ’s teaching and the Church as well.

About the endangered freedom of speech in Poland

– I doubt but I hope. I doubt when I am looking at the situation and how we are being treated from the position of power based in a lie, to which many people get subjected despite evident arguments; whereas I trust because I believe in God and the nation. We receive other signals about the preparations of other attacks. It is not all about the Television Trwam. It is only an example. It is all about a more important thing, about the freedom of speech, about media, about a possibility of a free dialogue – factual and substantial dialogue including arguments. For, what is happening now is its contradiction. It is ill, Bolshevik’s. It evidently matches with the description of Bolshevik Russia, about which we can read in books: ‘Lenin’, ‘Aquarium’, ‘A red tormentor’. What was the behaviour towards the intelligence, towards believers? Nearly in the same way as today. I am appealing again: Do not wake up a beast in people! Once woken up – will not withdraw from anything. I am really afraid of such a situation.

About the most important Brussels pronouncements

What struck me in the whole meeting are unusual good manners of our parliamentarians: conducting the meeting, professionalism and simply wisdom. Also welcoming in the European Parliament (it was the second time I had been at the public hearing) – reactions of other parliamentarians and different employees are full of courtesy and good manners. The clerical collar does not shock them at all. People are much kinder than in Poland.

The meeting was attended by different people – I am thinking about Poles here. I was surprised. In the hall there were about 200 people and those who gathered outside the building of the Parliament on the Luxembourg Square. Our compatriots arrived not only from Poland but also from Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, from France. It proves that listeners and viewers of the Television Trwam do care about this issue.

Among lecturers there were not only believers. One of the professors simply said that he was an agnostic. We all were united by care about freedom. There were very important theses, like the one of the journalist Ziemkiewicz about colonialism. He referred to the notion of a new class, created by a classic of investigating communism – Milovan Djilas. The new class because it was a bureaucratic class grown out of a real socialism in post-soviet countries – explained Ziemkiewicz.

Logic of taking over the policy change in Poland was based on the fact that the new class remained in the authority. First it gave back the political power in return for economic privileges and later, taking advantage of material privilege, it simply bought back this political power in democracy. Because this new class created a business in Poland, the new class created a governing class in Poland and media which became one of the power pillars. Here Ziemkiewicz used the phrase ‘media violence’. It is based on the fact that in media with concession, especially the electronic ones, one vision of order is binding, one vision of the world and one vision of the country where Poles live. Therefore, in the opinion of Ziemkiewicz –through a political decision, it did not allow an average Pole to have television which could give a different picture, within the range of a remote control, without a special effort. Even if it declares that it is only a religion television.

About hope

Hope is when the nation is conscious, based on righteous consciences of people. Hope is in decent people who create decent nation, and it emanates with a decent country. However, in order to make it happen, we must accept the Gospel. Here is the work of the Church and of all us. Although – is must be noted – it is not a final purpose. Our purpose is Heaven, but a road to it leads through life, on the Earth.

About a new idea of the television for youth

– I have various plans but in Brussels I revealed this one for the first time. No, it is not a new idea. I have already talked about it with lecturers and students of the High School of Social and Media Culture. We simply have people who feel media – young people who have good ideas. I did not even suppose. I have recently been surprised how the so-called film gala had been made at the university. I was invited. The initiator was the group Pro Life. I saw films which they had prepared. Short film, the longest one lasted 5 min. I was amazed by what they could do. I would not have such an idea by myself. Young people are very creative, it is only necessary that - as I still say – they should have a clear mind and righteous conscience and that they should remain with God. I do not say that some bigots are with God but. Also modern people can be with God. We should only give them a chance.

About the concession for the Television Trwam on the digital ground-based transmission

– Certainly I do not know whether it will happen today or tomorrow. Are these authorities changing their attitudes or must we wait. Anyway I believe that there will be a place for the Television Trwam on the multiplex. For, today’s situation is abnormal. For example, if one of the potentates has already got 13 places on the multiplex, another one has got only few less and there are two of them, black is seen on white that the system closes itself. Those who had them are receiving even more now. And those who accidently received them somewhere have to be eliminated. These are just Radio Maryja and the Television Trwam.

I will quote the words of Fr. Inf. Skubiś again: they, that is, the present governing elite, would agree on the Church in the Chinese style, the one subjected to the authority – if only priests did what they want. It is not accidental that Religia TV station is favoured. I am saying it consciously because it must be said. When I look at the media, I ask whose possession they are and I already know who stands behind it. In this case it is a vast corporation which does not like the Church. It is also indifferent to the homeland. And is this subject going to give us a tool of evangelisation? It is going give us a tool which will work in a way they want to. But it will be untrue and blurring the teaching of the Church. These are media of a confused trend.

Heard by Fr. Paweł Rozpiątkowski

(AA)

"Niedziela" 25/2012

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl