Father Jerzy Popieluszko, the 37 year-old Polish priest murdered in October 1984, is to be beatified today at an open-air Mass in Pilsudski Square, Warsaw. The Mass will be presided over by Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which issued the decree of beatification approved by Pope Benedict on December 19 2009.
The murder took place at a time of high tension between the Communist regime and the banned Solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa.
Mass was one of the few places where people could gather in large numbers and Fr Popieluszko’s sermons interwove spiritual and political messages pressing the liberation content of the gospel. His sermons were routinely broadcast throughout Poland by Radio Free Europe.
Popieluszko's body was found eleven days after he disappeared: it was dredged bound and gagged from the Vistula Water Reservoir near Wloclawek west of Warsaw.
As the then Polish leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski had used blocking administrative pressures rather than repressive measures to contain the Solidarity opposition, it is generally believed that rogue elements within the secret police - the Sluzba Bezpieczeutstwa - were responsible for the priest's murder
Those found responsible for the priest's disappearance were tried and jailed for a time but released later as part of an amnesty. And although Poland's National Remembrance Institute, the IPN, which investigates the crimes of the Communist era, has collected vast documentation on the priest's killing, there is still enormous pressure not to reveal the full facts.
Within the Church, there are many who blame former Catholic primate Cardinal Jozef Glemp for the death; some criticise him for not supporting Fr Popieluszko and others for not reining him in.
But love and admiration for Fr Popieluszko is strong among the ordinary people. Last year the late President Lech Kaczynski posthumously made him the recipient of the country's highest award, the Order of the White Eagle.
The Polish Church has not been low-key in preparing for today's beatification ceremony. But over the ceremony, the martyr himself will still raise a question mark as to whether the Polish people - Church and State - have yet achieved the values of truth and justice for which he lived and died.
SIC: CIN