Many Poles hoped that April plane crash of the Polish presidential jet would shock the nation enough to bridge the divide between conservative and liberal camps.But it’s only added fuel to the already heated debate about whose values should prevail.
Today’s demonstration and controversy about the removal of the cross erected in front of the presidential palace as a memorial to those who died in the tragedy shows Poland is once again divided into “true Poles” — those pledging their allegiance to the core of Poland’s Catholic Church — and all others, exposing deep rifts about the role of the Catholic church and its relationship with the Polish state.
The “true” Poles won their battle on Tuesday when, gathered in their hundreds, they prevented the relocation of the memorial.
The cross was erected by scouts after thousands of mourners began to lay flowers and candles in front of the presidential palace on the news of the crash in April that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.
The scouts erected the wooden cross outside the palace gate, but on the ground owned by the president’s office.
More than three months after the plane crash, with president-elect Bronislaw Komorowski getting ready for his inauguration on Friday, life was supposed to get back to normal and the cross was to be moved to St. Anne’s Church half a kilometer away.
Himself a Catholic, Mr. Komorowski announced his intention to relocate the cross well in advance, saying in July the presidential palace was “a sanctuary of the state” and not a memorial to his predecessor.
But his declaration caused outrage among some Catholics and the conservative Law and Justice party, which proposed Lech Kaczynski for president in 2005.
As the relocation date neared, many held all-night vigils at the cross, eventually erecting several smaller crosses and promising to defend them when the police came on Tuesday morning.
“Join us if you’re true Poles,” a crowd of protesters, many holding crosses in their hands, shouted at police officers who desperately tried to cordon them off from the makeshift memorial on Tuesday.
“This cross is the sign of our faith and of Poland,” exclaimed one protester.
When several priests arrived shortly before 1 p.m. local time to take the cross to a nearby church, people in the crowd accused them of not defending the symbol of the Catholic faith.
After more than an hour of rioting, the president’s office decided to leave the cross in its place for the time being.
The Democratic Left Alliance, a social-democratic political grouping formed from the ashes of the Communist party, said Tuesday this incident shows there’s a “religious war” in Poland, and called for greater separation of church and state.
(The grouping was in power twice over the past two decades, and never raised the issue.)
Church and state are intertwined in Poland today.
The Catholic religion is taught at public schools in Poland and the cross is in the assembly room of the Polish parliament, installed there in the 1990s by right-wing legislators who later unsuccessfully called for the enthronement of Jesus Christ as the King of Poland.
Still, the protesters Tuesday said they felt the state was hostile to the Catholic religion, and even to the nation.
When signing a traditional Catholic hymn, they ended it with the words “Oh Lord, may you return a free fatherland to us.”
It is the version used when Poland was occupied by foreign powers.
SIC: WSJ