The Permanent Council of the Polish Episcopal Conference, meeting urgently this Wednesday, November 4 in Warsaw, has offered to mediate in the confrontation between the Government of Donald Tusk and President Karol Nawrocki over control of the Constitutional Tribunal, and has called on the country’s Catholics to a day of fasting and penance on Tuesday, November 10. In the approved text, the bishops declare their “willingness to offer every possible assistance” to initiate and sustain a process of mediation and dialogue between the parties.
The bishops urge that the conflict not be aggravated, that constructive dialogue be undertaken, and that all difficulties be resolved peacefully, and they call for the abandonment of prejudices and the use of force. They warn that the political and social divisions, deepened over the years, are turning into hatred and aggression, and they recall that responsibility for the common good falls especially on politicians. “Together with the Holy Father, we believe in dialogue and reject violence and hatred”, they write. The text cites Leo XIV, who has asked that peace be recognized as built on justice, respect for the law, and dialogue, not on violence, and includes the warning of John Paul II in Centesimus annus that a democracy without values easily becomes an open or disguised totalitarianism.
The declaration ends with a call to prayer. The bishops invite the faithful to pray for social peace, national understanding, and reconciliation, propose singing the Supplication and the hymn Boże, coś Polskę, and reciting the prayer for the homeland by the Jesuit Piotr Skarga. “Let us pray for light and wisdom for those who govern”, they ask. The quotations, in Polish in the original, are translated by this editorial staff.
The meeting was announced on Tuesday in a video by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, Archbishop of Łódź, who explained that the Permanent Council would meet to speak on the country’s situation on behalf of millions of Catholics and believers. According to the German portal katholisch.de, this is the first extraordinary session of this body in many years. It comprises fourteen bishops, including the President of the Episcopal Conference, the Archbishop of Gdańsk, Tadeusz Wojda, and Cardinals Krajewski and Grzegorz Ryś. The spokesman of the episcopate, Father Leszek Gęsiak, summarized the content of the declaration, according to EWTN Polska.
The crisis worsened on Friday, October 30, when police entered the premises of the Constitutional Tribunal and one of its judges announced the suspension of its president, Bogdan Święczkowski. Nawrocki interrupted an official trip to Senegal and returned to Warsaw that same night. The president accuses the Government of having provoked a serious constitutional crisis and of acting illegally; the Government has been reproaching him for months for refusing to swear in five constitutional judges elected by the lower house. On Saturday, October 31, the presidency of the Episcopal Conference had already called for dialogue and prayer, without pronouncing on the responsibilities of the conflict.
The new text also does not assign blame, but goes further than the one issued on Saturday. The Polish bishops have moved from asking for dialogue to offering themselves to make it possible, and from prayer to a nationwide fast.
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