Fr Peter Complained of the sins of Poles surviving at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. He did not care about political correctness and did not follow the promise of which the later proverb says: The top Polish saint? Holy Order! For any a fiery prophet, for others a pervasive realist. What spiritual legacy did the Preacher of the Nation leave us, and in his sermons will we find an image of our modern sins by which we lose God’s blessing? Or do we add fresh ones to the measurement of these sins that our ancestors never dreamed of? These questions are answered by Sławomir Skiba, Vice president of the Fr Piotr Skarga Association.
The conversation was published in the 3rd issue of Quarterly PCh24.pl – click HERE and download PDF
Fr Peter Complaint in the 3rd Sejm sermon contained a celebrated description of the consequences of the sins of the Republic. The image of political collapse and imagination of failure of statehood is accompanied by words referring to the very essence of national identity. The Preacher directs to the ruling elites at that time specified current words, announcing that "you will turn a nation that hates you." Do you not have the impression that we are surviving in a time of fulfilled prophecy?
Certainly, but let us first note what these “prophets” of the priest of Complaint were. The Complaint itself says Call for Repentance[1]: "Though not Isaiah, but his shadow and the vilest messenger of God from the priestly order, yet with Isaiah I cry...," and he had no peculiar revelations or visions. We, through our romantics, have in our eyes the Complaint, which has a vision, is kidnapped by this imagination and tells about what it sees. But in fact, the complaint says that it is based on common sense and foresees the consequences of the sins to be committed and will surely happen if we follow the logic of these events and of these sins.
Are we present in a minute where we can say that we have turned into a abroad nation? I think that the priest Complaint, speaking to himself today, besides means all those who will be affected by a akin apostasy and provides that at any time it must lead to the collapse of the Republic. The complaint addressed Poles in a circumstantial historical context in which Poland grew into prosperity and fame. He spoke to the full Polish society, surviving in a immense country, almost the largest in Europe, about almost a million square kilometers of land, very rich, 1 of the most influential in Europe; he addressed free citizens of the power and just said to them that their country would turn to peril, and they themselves to a abroad nation that individual else would take over their legacy and everything around them would be ravaged. The complaint is akin to that of Noah, who built the ark and threatened all with punishment for sins, while men indulged in games and carelessly bathed in pleasures.
In our time, this turning into a abroad nation takes on a peculiar importance. After periods of downs and ups, our national substance is in a state of eventual degradation and with specified a demography and a crisis of identity – if nothing changes – then we will most likely just wait until the stranger, then immigrants will take over the baton in our country.
Fr Piotr Complaint in his imagination of the collapse of the Republic speaks, among another things, about the failure of Slavic language, and yet present we inactive talk Polish, we come from the Polish ethnos, although a large part of our nation, including politicians, does not seem to identify with these traditions, virtues, principles that built Poland. Don't you feel we're dealing with a paradox?
No doubt. Let us take the tongue which the Lord has called. If we look at this degradation of the Polish speech, which followed the period of its improvement from the old Poland to the 19th century, then – despite codification of the principles of grammar, orthography and so on – we will not avoid the impression that our language is constantly pooring, it becomes increasingly primitive. This is, of course, a reflection of any emptiness that the minds and hearts of Poles have, due to the fact that language is nothing but a carrier of content that we extract from ourselves. He expresses who we are and what plays in our soul. The question arises, how much is this language besides civilized and cultural? How much do we show love for our neighbor? If we begin to deficiency these well-known old Polish polite phrases or formulas expressing respect for another human being, we see how low our culture is.
When we talk about the condition of Poland, I would like to invitation you to a journey in the footsteps of Father Piotr Skarga, specifically those sins which he accused the Republic of then Poles. I propose that we discuss 1 by 1 the sins that mark the complaint in Seismic sermons and I ask you to consider whether these sins are inactive valid, whether they are reflected in today's context. The first 1 is Unkindness toward the HomelandAbout which the Preacher speaks in the sermon of others. erstwhile I read about it, I have in front of all those politicians who talk about Poland, possibly even truly calling certain problems, but to solve them by approaching them in a way completely deprived of this son's love, which with specified force pierces from the life and work of Piotr Skarga.
Ah, not only do they not approach the Fatherland with love, but we hear in their speeches contempt for the Fatherland, contempt for their fellow citizens, for the nation. How far is their language from this complaining language – that Poland is our parent – to which the Holy Father John Paul II refers erstwhile he says in awe: “This is my mother, this earth! This is my mother, this country! These are my brothers and sisters! And understand, all of you who are reckless about these things...’. present we see that these politicians, whom the Lord spoke of, without mentioning them by name (who has ears to perceive to, let him perceive to), are people who, even if they talk of Poland, in their words we hear falsehood, as if they did not believe that this Homeland, Poland, has any value for them another than the value of electoral posts and the power they want to maintain. And it's not just the politicians of the left. Often, even right-wing politicians deficiency genuine admiration over Poland, appreciation for our country, that we have any remnants of independency and sovereignty that we should defender like the pupils of the eye. And so many are willing to pay the Republic not even for the judaic silver pieces, but for any fleeting commendation, for petting their heads for being accurate and correct.
So let us go to the another mentioned by the Complaint of Sin, or to domestic disputes. It seems as old as the world, and yet it appears on the list of these circumstantial faults which led to the fall of the Republic. Do you think this is something that we, Poles, aim especially at among the nations?
Yes, there is something about us that even Poles in the planet experience. erstwhile you talk to representatives of the Polish people, you can feel the entrenched jealousy within us, caused by the fact that my neighbour has a small better than me, and besides the indignity towards his fellowmen, his neighbors, his kinsmen, the deficiency of love for his neighbor, which would let him to enjoy the happiness of others. To exaggerate, we could say that it sounds in our national soul almost like a false prayer: Lord God, if I don't have it, then let him not have it, let him have it as hard, let him endure as I do...
We know this prayer from Swine Day...
Exactly. We really know it from pop culture. And speaking of the example of Polonia, my aunt, who lives in the United States, says that sometimes she doesn't even want to meet another Poles, due to the fact that erstwhile she meets, it feels like everyone is asking “how are you?” not to be happy about it, just to get jealous. This is an ugly trait from which we have not been cured, and the complaint surely saw this unkindness toward each other. He saw home disagreements and the request to diminish not himself but others, besides not being a servant to others in the Gospel sense, but, on the contrary, demanding others to humble themselves before us; let them first apologize, let them long out their hand, let them show us respect first.
You didn't mention to politics. But I think that's good. Thus you recalled that what we are dealing with in public life begins in our heart.
That's right. hatred begins in our heart. I'd say all the scum in that boiler where the devil mixes[2], they hit the surface, and most clearly in politics. There are many sins. hatred and jealousy moved all the way to the borders of any almost pseudo-curity, so that we feel selfless even hatred erstwhile we see these modern parliamentary committees, this desire to catch up with a political opponent, as if it were the worst enemy on the battlefield. Whether the condition of the another person’s illness or another ailments is simply a pretext, there are no human reasons. There's no compassion for the enemy. It is so profoundly anti-Christian that it can only compare to the barbarism of the East. With those hordes from the East who were willing to torment and torment another man just to watch him suffer. This is simply a barbaric, enemy of civilization trait, standing on the antipodes of an evangelical call to neighbor's love.
What you're saying is kind of provocative. We inactive hear that Poles are 1 of the most Catholic nations in the world. Is there a fundamental deficiency? Or possibly we haven't been full evangelized?
I think the another one. The process of civilization, Christianity of nations is long-term and requires a model that we can draw from. This pattern carries the elite, and I think that the problem of shortages in Christianity was little visible as long as these elites we had—the actual intellectual elites, the blood elites, but besides the spirit elites—those who gave the tone. present it is all the better to see our national flaws that the elites that have been murdered are missing. The nation was paralyzed by communism. Of course, the possessors first made any havoc, and then the First and Second planet War, but the worst thing was the barbaric communism, which declared everyone else and struck down those remnants of elites that we had even in the inter-war.
So present we see the lowest instincts that have not yet been schristianized. Because, as St. Pius X said, civilization par excellence It's a Christian civilization. Schistianing equals civilization. If we have barbarism within us, it means that we have not been completely Christianized in our mass. individual will say that what I'm saying is not patriotic and that I'm looking at alien patterns. But erstwhile we look at the culture of everyday life, in this way of addressing ourselves in another nations, those west of us, we announcement that they are falling from a higher mountain. So they have more to lose. The moral decline, or problems with immigration, has gone much further there, although cultural degradation in countries that have not been annihilated by the communist warhead is progressing at much lower speeds. If you don't believe, look at how children behave there, how they relate to strangers, to adults. I am talking about countries specified as France and Germany, where even on the street you can meet children who say "Good morning to you", "Good morning to you". I've experienced it myself. Meanwhile, in our surroundings, children frequently do not even greet the elders. The aspects of education, which were apparent erstwhile they were close to us, who remembered the culture of even the Second Republic, become completely absent, and this must translate into all another areas of life, into brutalization of customs.
At this point I can think of beautiful words from Mr Tadeusz that “The justice in the home kept past customs, and never allowed them to miss out on age, birth, reason, office” ...
Yes, as a nation, we forget all this; that specified consideration simply belongs. fewer people even pay attention to giving way to places or another gestures of this kind that build a culture of everyday life.
Speaking of cultural pauperization, which you have already mentioned: I was very pleasantly amazed erstwhile an Italian colleague said that despite their moral decline, in all Italian advanced school, in classes with a humanist profile, the standard is teaching Latin and Greek. Only Latin is taught in discipline classes.
This is, of course, an component of classical education, which is being destroyed with specified enthusiasm today. The current deformity of the Ministry of National Education drops us to even lower circles.
Another sin of the Republic was described in sermons 4 and five. Father Complaints in them about violation of Catholic religion by heretic plague and this as Catholic faith, police[3] and the kingdoms prosper, and heretics overwhelm them. Do not these words seem abstract today, erstwhile a state respecting God’s law and regulation is no longer even a distant memory?
Our situation present is simply a far-reaching reflection of the effects of the Protestant revolution. It was clear to the priest of the Complaint and the Jesuit fathers that the Innovators were revolutionaries due to the fact that they destroyed the very foundations of social order. It's not just spiritual beliefs. They besides had political consequences. A complaint elsewhere will say that a Catholic and a heretic cannot have the same knowing of justice. How can a blasphemer be just erstwhile first he offends God himself?
What about today, erstwhile Catholic religion is completely defensive? As shortly as 1 mentions the request to respect Christian anthropology or to preserve civilization and Christian heritage, he is accused of postulating a spiritual state and violating neutrality or the separation of the Church from the state and another nonsense that shows appalling ignorance about what is at the heart of the Republic. Catholic religion has founded our state, and as long as it is faithful to its inheritance, it will keep a mention to actual religion. Catholic religion is inactive present in any symbols, at the occasion of state ceremonies, but it is simply a residual form and the disappearance of Catholic principles in everyday relationships that push us towards barbarism. On the another hand, the same problems with which the clergy collided in the era of the alleged Reformation – not only blasphemy, but besides open attacks on the Blessed Sacrament and on spiritual people. Why did the priest Complain establish the Arch Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament? It wasn't just a question of godliness. At the time, erstwhile Protestant currents were spreading, attacks on the priest who went with the Blessed Sacrament to the sick and the primary function of the Archibrity was the physical protection of the priest against attacks of heretics. Today, we may have broken all the records, and the complaint would surely respond with holy anger and large outrage. We are besides in a situation where the Lord God delays the price of all this blasphemy.
In Sukurs comes the sacrament of penance, about which Complaint speaks in the 5th sermon, indicating the importance of confession for the quality of moral public life.
Yes, due to the fact that in order for confession to happen, you besides request a conscience check. It is essential to look at oneself in truth, or in humility, and in respect to the Lord God, to His Love. A politician who takes confession seriously has a work to make amends if he does something publically against religion and morality. If 1 of the Christian denominations can look for nonsubjective assurances of forgiveness of sins, it is only Catholicism. He remains faithful to God's revelation, to the sacraments and to the full structure of the Church, which does not come from man, but flows from God's establishment. It separates us from the Protestants. Besides, this can be seen on a much more mundane example. Let's see, which culinary traditions are the most rich and exquisite? That's Catholic cuisine. There is even specified anecdote that erstwhile a Catholic goes to confession and receives absolution, he will feel a large spiritual joy that he would like to manifest outside somehow. He will return home and will naturally find a way out for this spiritual joy in purely material customs, in good cuisine, or in reaching for a good drink. In the conscience of Protestants who inactive live in uncertainty and do not know whether the Lord has forgiven them and whether they live in the grace of God, a certain frustration can be born, of course, very pleasurable. I think that after a little, in a good sense, they may envy the Catholics the anticipation of confession and the sense that they are cleansed of sins. But it's only possible in confessional.
If we are obliged to retreat from sin and to correct it, how can we talk about politicians in Poland who call themselves Catholics, go to church and then vote as if nothing for liberalizing access to abortion or signing the in vitro bill?
These are public sins that many of these politicians do not want to hear about—and that is possibly an ignorance blamed. erstwhile they commit public sins contrary to the doctrine of the Church, in many cases they may be subjected to excommunities by virtue of the very fact itself. They vote for abortion openly. Similarly, they sign the In vitro Act, manifestly opposing the discipline of religion and morality. In that case, confession alone is not enough. However, public sins request public redress, and there is simply a large responsibility. Many refuse to even think about it. They think that even if they voted for abortion, they can still, with a calm conscience, join Holy Communion. But it's not. If they think that they can practice dual morality and that they are allowed to join the sacraments, even though they are publically opposed to teaching the Church through a concrete act, specified as voting for rights that agree to the right to life, they are in large error.
The sin which the priest mentions The complaint in sermon six is weakness of royal dignity and power. present it is known that the Polish kingdom is already a memory, unfortunately, rather abstract. This was shown for example by this year's celebration of the millennium of the Polish Crown. But do we live in a country that we can take seriously? And do we have authority that, with the right strength and justice, would care for the common good and which could decently represent the timeless majesty of the Republic?
There's a reason we lost respect for power. present another bastion falls as we watch what happens to the judiciary. In turn, proof of the fall of executive power was late a spectacular raid on the Presidential Palace. It's very symbolic. No large deal about it, no reaction. Not a single shot has been fired on the home of the Head of State (this remains of the monarchic system). The home of the president and the Chief Chief of the Armed Forces came in to search the premises in his absence. The services to defend the president did not respond and allowed another services to hit the head of the state. It's an unprecedented thing. For little than that before planet War II, people received severe penalties. Meanwhile, for disrespecting the Polish uniform, and for insulting the majesty of the brightest Republic, which is represented by the Head of State, no hair has fallen off nobody's head.
Suffice to mention the widespread violation of the law by the government and the passing of laws contrary to the basic law — a phenomenon that has been expanding for respective years. What about the discretion of the judges? What signal do citizens receive in this way? This is of course a signal that nothing is unchangeable in this country and that no authority guarantees their safety. This is usually the minute before the fall and anarchy.
Thus you pointed to another point in our conversation, and at the same time another sin of the Republic mentioned by the Complaint. It's the making. unfair rights. On the 1 hand, human rights exist, and on the other, the Preacher mentions almost naturalwhich we call natural law. It will avenge the harm done in the lower classes; even though you stand before the peasant as a self-proclaimed justice who can even kill without taking any responsibility. So we are dealing with trampling on the laws of God, and with any discretion of this human law. Does that sound familiar?
Certainly, but present we can besides add an external dictatorship in the form of the European Union. Whether on its own initiative or under force from Brussels, legislators are against natural law and the laws resulting from it. The right to life and property are being violated. The protection of freedom in its most basic and apparent dimensions is not presently included in the legislation. In any respects, we stand at a level lower than slaves, due to the fact that we are even denied the natural right to defend ourselves, including the right to hold arms. All these attacks on private property and on the anticipation of utilizing means of transport, carried out under the pretext of various ideologies, are in fact an effort on our natural rights.
When you talk about modern slavery, do you not have the impression that certain intellectual blockades of Poles, which do not let us to realize that we should be masters on our own land, are any distant in time a consequence of noble slavola; 1 which was branded by the priest Complaint?
It may be that the nation is suffering enormously present the consequences of this slavola and noble anarchy, descending to the level of the erstwhile people — the degraded social group they were in fact, there is nothing to hide, peasants: frequently attached to the land and deprived of many rights. Today, the nation experiences in its mass what any may have experienced in the past, possibly even more. The fact is that the situation of Polish peasants in the 17th century was not enviable. It is written by the priest Complaint, claiming the destiny of the peasants and reminding that even a 100 years earlier the peasants had the chance to complain of the evil masters, even before the king. At the time of the Complaint, this is becoming virtually impossible — it is losing equality before the law, derived from Roman law and from the best traditions of civilized social relations. There is besides the anticipation of fatherly treatment of the subjects of the king and interference, where necessary, in unfair relations, as well as vigilance of social order in this regard.
Every day we experience the effects of this paupering, low awareness and circumstantial anesthesia on the request for freedom. It may be felt that most people do not request freedom or that they give it for the games, for a substitute for material possessions. That the nation became a hostage and slave — in exchange for the illusion of apparent safety and the anticipation of utilizing electronic “toys” that offer even paying by the touchdown of the wrist. “Well, due to the fact that they will control me, if I am more comfortable, ” it seems to me. I have even heard specified words that part of freedom should be devoted to this expected safety and comfort.
In a deeper perspective, this leads to man being brought only to his animal nature. delight note that there is more and more talk about prosperity, but goodness. I even noticed late in the church that this fashionable word appeared in a sermon. Meanwhile, ‘good’ is simply a concept which has traditionally been utilized for breeding animals. They must have the welfare to guarantee that cows give milk and chickens bear eggs. They request to be able to walk, cluck, peck in the mud — and they request nothing more. I like to usage the metaphor that we've lost the eagle's perspective, and we've adopted the possible of a hen that beaks in dirty ground and is content with the fact that it's found respective grains and could eat. This was not the calling of our nation.
You have raised to the board another subject, the last of the list of sins. Priest Complaints their sins manifest and unpunished. I wouldn't focus on sin itself this time due to the fact that we've already done it. We are a morally failing nation, as the number of divorces shows. But this impunity seems more important. What can be said of those who call themselves Catholics and people attached to conventional moral concepts, but in the face of the surrounding evil, they become people about whom the complaint said that their Men's strength with delights swelled? Did Polish Catholics lose their fighting spirit?
I'm certain it is. The complaint is addressed to the nobility, who came from the knighthood state and inactive led a harsh, soldierly life until recently, and now “from the nobility's road became carriages, pillows, gingerbreads” and “with beds, with feathers they go to war.” As then the failure of male customs led to the effigy of those who were expected to defend their homeland, so present we could easy identify countless types of men and boys resembling dolls: delicate, focused on fashionable looks and even on smell. This frequently means simply astonishment — just look at men's perfumes, which increasingly have sweet, almost unisexed notes, or wide, puffy trousers, becoming almost dresses. All this makes the virtue of valor cease to be a measurement of appropriate conduct, and the masculinity itself as a individual pattern fades in a visible and perceptible way.
And I would add a far-reaching pacification of the nation. So far away, we don't even see uniformed soldiers on the streets. Outside the police, we do not actually meet people in uniform today, and it matters due to the fact that the spirit of valor and the spirit of valor no longer expresses itself symbolically in public space. We know that there's a ban on soldiers in uniform in public places. Meanwhile, in the Second Republic, the uniform was present on the streets and was a sign of pride from his own country, a symbol of social prestige, and a clear expression of the fact that a given man belongs to the elite of the country — to those who defend the Homeland and to whom peculiar respect belongs. To complete this picture, it is worth noting that even erstwhile uniforms appear today, they are no longer gale uniforms, but only field uniforms, in the "moro" pattern. They are intended to supply comfort in combat activities, but do not execute typical functions and do not reflect the seriousness enjoyed especially by the officer. In the past, this referred to a full strategy of symbols — including knightly symbols — and distinctions that made a soldier walking down the street in a gala uniform a origin of respect and respect.
What you are talking about is primarily reflected in the state sphere. But I'd like to ask you to further comment on how this relates to a purely private, local or neighbourly sphere. Do we not submit to the old Polish “sin of tolerance” and the usual passiveness in the face of moral evil and corruption, which frequently enters schools and which we see in our loved ones?
I think it's just a substance of losing the virtue of valor. So actually cowardice. We explain: “What will I respond to?” Or, "It's no of my business." deficiency of courage involves neglecting merciful deeds, not only about the body (which we may inactive remember), but above all about the soul. We forget that we should exhort those who sin. And yet this is what the Christian attitude requires of us; that, seeing sin, we should search to exterminate him, or at least set ourselves to him in contrariness, whether it be a public sin, or that which is in our families. So that we do not pretend that we do not see this sin, do not look at our children or grandchildren in the abyss of sin.
In addition to these six diseases, would you mention 1 that the complaint does not mention, which is typical of the 3rd Republic?
I'm the 1 who's most anxious to miss freedom. This spreading slave mentality. It is hard to call it a circumstantial sin; it may be alternatively the effects of sin, as we have already discussed. Surely, however, it is simply a responsibility that has certain consequences: we become hostages in our own country, and there will be no uncertainty that there will be gentlemen who will want to take over — and surely not Christian masters.
I propose we end our conversation openly. However, we are incapable to present a coherent programme. But I would ask you to reflect on the first step that we should take to get out of the crisis. Is this expected to be a political step? The step of activism? Or should he be more... ascetic?
Politics is only a derivative of everyday life and moral life. Today's decision-makers want to mock it, but that's the truth. It is about returning to the practice of virtues; that, as St.John Paul II said, we should require of ourselves, even though others do not require of us. In the Church we no longer hear it, and we should hear it. We have the right and work to request it from our shepherds. To reprove. Ambon is expected to talk about sins. We should see hundreds of followers of Father Peter Skarga, who, out of concern for the salvation of souls and the moral quality of social life, would like to denounce all that leads our nation and our country to destruction.
You mentioned, erstwhile again, virtue. But does the average Pole have any thought what this virtue is today? I don't even ask in a supernatural context, but in mention to ordinary, natural moral performance. After all, we know the curiosity of a professor, associated with a minister who spoke of “the virtues of the women” as if the performance of the human soul had gender...
It's true. We deficiency the simple form of concepts, both philosophical and catechistic. Many preachers are determined to think abstractly, whereas in fact it would be adequate to scope out to catechism and clearly tell what to do to be a good man. How can we practice individual virtues? How can we deal with our main flaw and circumstantial tendencies toward sin? What is truth? What is the love of neighbor, this actual love of neighbor, which does not come down to a virtuous, sentimental feeling prompting for constant indulgence, but implies concern for the real moral welfare of another man. Otherwise, we are doomed to alleged "good humanity" and to believe that being good to everyone is simply a definition of being a good person. However, it is not only about "good", it is about helping each another on the way to the salvation of the soul.
Thank you so much for talking to me.
Philip Obara
[1] Work Call for penance of citizens of the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of 1610 summarizes the most crucial thoughts Seismic sermons.
[2] It's about the phase of preparation from the drama. Kordian Juliusz Słowacki, where evil powers for ridicule and perversion of all that is noble in Poles, mix in a boiler, thus creating fresh types of people; they are to lead society from now on.
[3] Where's the word? Police author derived from Greek polytheiaIn short, public order.
The conversation was published in the 3rd issue of Quarterly PCh24.pl
Click HERE and download PDF
