Letter to the People of Poland
The letter John Paul II wrote to his fellow Poles as he began his pontificate. In it he tells the cardinal primate that there would be no Polish pope but for the primate’s faith, which did not retreat before prison and suffering.
The letter is dated from Vatican City, 23 October 1978. In its third paragraph the pope says that in recent decades the church in Poland has acquired a special significance for the whole church because of the particular system of relations in which it lives, and has become a church of special testimony. In the fifth he addresses the “Cardinal Primate” directly: the Polish pope would not be on Peter’s chair but for the primate’s faith, hope and trust, and his ministry as bishop and primate. He says the same to the Polish bishops, clergy and people. He adds his wish to come to Poland for the nine hundredth anniversary of St Stanislaus.
The letter does not give the primate’s name. He was Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, as Pope Francis said when he quoted these words in 2021. See John Paul II and the Churches under Communism.
Cited in
- 1978 to 1979, firm date