Significance and Timeliness of the Teachings of Primate S. Wyszyński on the Personhood of Nations

Mirosław Kowalczyk

Abstract

According to Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński the nation is the highest form of societal life. It has its own internal identity and individuality which distinguish it from other nations co-existing alongside it. A properly defined identity, built upon the foundation of Christianity, precludes nationalism, since in a Christian nation international relations are conditioned with reference to the Holy Trinity. Polish contemporary society today needs clear points of reference; certainly Cardinal S. Wyszyński’s teaching can be one of them. Poland and, more broadly, Europe, need new impetus in regaining a full awareness of the necessity of bravely upholding fundamental values. The times through which the great Primate led the Church in Poland were difficult, but it was possible not only to defend the community of nation and Church in Poland, but this community also offered a wonderful testimony of faith and of a heroic stance, exemplified by the figures of St. John Paul II, Bl. Jerzy Popiełuszko, and many others. Today a new socio-political situation has arisen in Poland and in Europe. There is war in the east; in the western part of the continent an increasingly more formidable migration crisis has been ignited; everywhere there can be seen a spiritual, moral, crisis, an identity crisis. All of this is telling us that it is necessary to return to fundamental values, built on the basis of Christianity and ancient culture. It is these values which were the very core of the socio-anthropological thought of Cardinal Wyszyński, especially his teaching on Christian nationhood. The Primate emphasizes not only the significance and human dignity of the individual person, but also points to the collective, the community, as an organic society, forming a personal reality, indirectly created by God. In his preaching Cardinal Wyszyński created an original concept of the personhood of a society, which is subject to – just as is an individual person – all the laws of the salvation history process.