Bożena Ratter: Communism declared war on God...

On 5 December 1927, the Shepherd's Letter of the Polish Bishops was announced. They gave it to the press all Polish writings. His dignified form, warm feeling and large importance of the matters raised is the message of the Polish Bishops on the front of the most crucial interior life acts of our Republic in the year 1927 – wrote Henryk Glass. Due to the extraordinary importance of this paper and the strong and right criticism of communism and the full materialistic worldview, we place below the most crucial paragraphs.

“Communism declared war on God, fights against God’s name, expels Christ from states, nations and public education, destroys household nodes, spreads loose conduct, violates individual freedom, - free citizens turn into slaves, and the people, the laborer and the country are poor.

And those who, in the communist system, rule, command absolute religion in themselves, and place themselves in place of the overthrown altars of God. And as in times of plagues, poisonous germs there are nesting before all, where there are organisms already weakened by disease, so besides the poison of communism spreads there above all, where moral diseases of the soul of the nation are developing.

Moral and spiritual diseases are spread by all those who, in legislative chambers and outside of them, have fought and fought against religion and the Church, who, through the sectarian spiritual currents, spread the distribution of the spirit, destruct spiritual unity in believers. It besides promotes the spread of this plague any loosening of customs, any failure of a healthy sense of law of justice and duty, any weakening of household nodes, any demolition of healthy moral fires, and any support of evil and unhealthy.

It is now easy for you to realize for yourselves how much work you have for these elections that are now coming. due to the fact that these choices are to find the regulation of Christ in our public life. In all countries, and so in Poland, there are 2 directions against each other: the first - the defence of the rights of Christ, and the second - the fight against all spiritual principles; these are actually 2 camps that start to divide the Polish people. any go under the banner of Christ, want to establish and grow the kingdom of God in Poland, while others would advise to give the Republic the antichrist spirit.

We so call on you and at the same time renew our erstwhile calls for your civilian duty, namely voting. After all, the vast majority in Poland is Catholic and it is not by name only; so if those who attend the church were to give their votes to the ballot box as God and conscience commands them, then surely God's spirit would regulation in Poland. So remember that you have a work to choose people of Catholic conviction and blameless life.

From them you must request that, in the future parliament and senate, they defend the rights and freedoms of the Church of the inseparability of the matrimony knot, the influence of religion on public education and the influence of the gospel on the full social system; that they take care, for example, to increase the welfare of the state, to supply the worker, to increase the wealth of the household by healthy, on the justice based on reforms.

We exhort you and inform you not to be deceived by vain promises; for you know well from your own experience that those who most loudly shout and promise, always least keep, do not be intimidated by anything, and believe that no 1 and nothing can break you, since you will extract from yourselves the moral forces which God has put in you, and God's staff is developing. Do not let yourselves be led astray by those who sow hatred of classes and layers. What this hatred leads to, for example, in Russia, under communism. There it was constantly called, "people, people," and almost everyone who was not an owner, or a worker, or a associate of another class, was counted as the enemy of the people. And today?

Today, poorness is so widespread there that hundreds of thousands of savage, torn and hungry children wander around villages and streets, begging or stealing. The same sad and painful view clearly shows what the promised paradise, built on class warfare and hatred, actually looks like. Remember that not only he who commits evil does sin, but he who does sin no less, and he who does good, neglects and leaves. Therefore, catechism divides sins into sins of committing and sins of neglect. So the voter sines, who does not go to the ballot box and does not give his voice.

Finally, we curse and call on all those who declare that they are standing on a Catholic program, so that they do not share, but go together and together. We do not request to explain to you the apparent fact that sharing at specified a minute as the present moment, those who have a common program weakens and shrinks the Catholic and national camp, breaks the unity and thus condemns the failure of the most crucial substance and issues of spiritual and national life, and even the fates and futures of the nation and of Poland.

Therefore, we cry to your consciences and we curse on you for the good of the Church and Poland, which you always have on your lips, and we do not uncertainty that you wear them and in your hearts, in St Paul's words, "Try to keep the unity of the spirit in the union of peace."

The letter was signed:

Fr Aleksander Cardinal Rakowski, Fr August Cardinal Hlond, Fr Józef Teodorowicz, Archbishop of Lviv, Fr Adam Sapieha, Archbishop of Cracow, Fr Bolesław Twardowski, Archbishop of Lviv, Fr Romuald Jabrzykowski, Archbishop of Vilnius, Fr Anatol Nowak, Bishop of Industry, Fr Leon Wałęga, Bishop of Tarnowski, Fr Antoni Juijan Nowowieski, Bishop of Płocki, Fr Augustyn Łosinski, Bishop of Kielce, Fr Marjan Ryx, Bishop of Sandomierz, Fr Zygmunt Łozinski, Bishop of Piński, Fr Władysław Krynicki, Bishop of Włocławski. Fr Marjan Fulman, Bishop of Lublin, Fr Adolf Szzelajek. Bishop of Łuki, Fr Henryk Przeździecki, Bishop of Podlaski, Fr Stanisław Łukomski, Bishop of Łomżyński, Fr Wincenty Tymieniecki, Bishop of Łódź, Fr Teodor Kubina, Bishop of Częstochowa, Fr Stanisław Okoniewski, Bishop of Chełmiński, Fr Arkadyusz Lisiecki, Bishop of Silesia.

The editorial "Walki z Bolshevism", placing the message of the Polish Bishops with the highest joy, declares publically that it is at the disposal of the Polish Episcopate in the fight against the enemies of Christianity, the Polish Nation and the Republic of Poland. (Fighting against Bolshevik 1928).

Today we request a letter of the Polish Bishops.

Oh, my God.