Jerzy Popiełuszko

Jerzy Popiełuszko [ jɛʐɨ pop ɛwuʂko ʲ ] ( born September 14, 1947 in Okopy at Suchowola as Alfons Popiełuszko, † October 19, 1984 in Wloclawek ) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest who, because of his support for the opposition to the Solidarity of the sluzba Bezpieczeństwa the Polish State Security Service, was murdered. In 2010 Popiełuszko was beatified.

Life

Popiełuszko came from simple village conditions in the northeast of the country. After high school, he entered the seminary in Warsaw. The military service, he therefore had to serve in a dreaded task force for candidates for the priesthood. After several pastorates, he was chaplain.

During the 1980 run strikes Kaplan Popiełuszko was used as chaplains to support the Warsaw steelworker. After the banning of Solidarity 's St. Stanislaus Kostka church became a rallying point for opposition civil rights. In his sermons, he sharply criticized the then communist regime in Poland, 1981, imposed martial law and the prohibition of the trade union Solidarity. His monthly " Fair for the fatherland " as was brisk that it has been transferred into the open with speakers. Like many other Polish parishes supported Popiełuszkos community the families of regime opponents who had lost their jobs or were in prison. Relief supplies received the community, among others, the International Society for Human Rights. These contacts saw the Polish governance as " subversive Connections". Consequences were spying, threats and interrogations. In December 1983, Popiełuszko were planted during a search of his apartment, inter alia, explosives, grenades and ammunition. Because of this bogus evidence, he was arrested for sabotage, but was soon released under pressure from the public and on intervention of the Bishop Bronislaw Dabrowski the Interior Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak and then pardoned under an amnesty.

On October 13, 1984, a failed attack by the security service using a stone throw to his passing car.

On October 16, 1984 he was offered the then Primate Józef Glemp to a period of study in Rome, which he declined.

On October 19, 1984 stopped three officers of the Polish Communist State Security Service sluzba Bezpieczeństwa led by Grzegorz Piotrowski his car in Toruń and kidnapped him. They beat him with their fists and wooden sticks, tied stones to his feet and drowned him in the Vistula River Dam in Wloclawek. There his body was found on October 30.

The perpetrators, Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek Pękala and Waldemar Chmielewski were discovered, as the driver of the priest managed to escape and the license plate had noticed. The public responded to the discovery of the body of water applied.

The funeral on November 3, 1984 in his St. Stanislaus Kostka church in Warsaw, at up to 800,000 people took part, was a demonstration against the communist government.

The government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski had the perpetrators make the process. In the course of the prosecution for the main perpetrators even demanded the death penalty. However, there were convictions between 10 and 25 years imprisonment, which was later mitigated. In addition, the judges said at the time, backers have given it none. It was only in 2004, documents were released, after which Jaruzelski in 1984 his former interior minister and member of the Central Committee General Mirosław Milewski suspected as the mastermind who could, however, be based on the powerful Soviet secret service KGB. Nevertheless, the fast solve the crime is regarded as one of the "last coffin nails for the Communist regime in Poland."

His grave so far visited about 24 million pilgrims, including Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI. , George HW Bush and Margaret Thatcher.

On 8 July 1997, he became Pope John Paul II beatification process for Jerzy Popiełuszko. Pope Benedict XVI. called for an acceleration of the process and recognized him by a decree of 19 December 2009 the heroic virtues too. On June 6, 2010 Popiełuszko was on the Piłsudski Square in Warsaw represented before approximately 100,000 to 250,000 faithful and in the presence of its 100- year-old mother Marianna Popiełuszko by Pope Benedict XVI. , Pro - Prefect, Archbishop Angelo Amato beatified as martyrs.

Since July 13, 1986, Jerzy Popiełuszko worshiped in the chapel of the "Black Madonna" in Illdorf ( Bavaria).