Catholicism as a Weapon of Polishness

In view of the exceptionally great importance for our people of the cause of uniting into one indivisible family all Belarusians, Orthodox and Catholic, divided by "Muscovite" Orthodoxy and "Polish" Catholicism, we reprint this article from the newspaper "Krynica", which is published in Vilnia. — Ed.

For several centuries, under various political conditions, Belarusian Catholics received Catholicism from their western neighbour, Poland. With very few exceptions, this Catholicism was instilled in us not as the teaching of Christ but as a political weapon for the Polonization of the Belarusians.

The clearest proof of this is the union of Orthodoxy and Catholicism of 1596. The foundations of the Union, the manner in which it was carried out, the attitude toward it of the Polish government, the Polish clergy and Polish society*) — all of this together shows that Catholicism is merely a cloak for Polish political work.

So it was, and so it is. Today, in the new Poland, Polish Catholicism in the Belarusian lands remains, as before, a Polish-gentry and for the most part thoroughly political platform. The Polish Catholicism that we have now, with very few exceptions, is plainly hostile to the Belarusian people and to its spiritual and material revival. The leaders of Polish Catholicism among us have to this day not brought themselves to give official support to the Belarusian language in church for Belarusians, and in the Vilnia Theological Seminary not even some of the Belarusian studies have been introduced to this day.

We shall not list all the wrongs that flow from such a position of Catholicism among us, both for Catholicism itself and for the Catholic part of the Belarusian people in general. Let us recall the main ones. Catholicism, on the one hand, was presented to the Belarusian people in an alien, barely comprehensible Polish language, touched the Belarusian's heart strangely little and left strangely few traces of spiritual culture in it; on the other hand, the same Catholicism left in that heart a seed of distrust toward it, which for long showed hardly any sign of life but which now sprouts in the heart of the Belarusian Catholic. Thanks to the war, the revolution and the growth of national consciousness, he sees that Polish Catholicism is something deeply foreign to him, and that it shows one-sidedness and even disagreement with the truth.

This harmful and entirely wrong fusion of Polishness and Catholicism shows signs of life not only in Western Belarus, under Poland, but even… in Soviet Belarus. The religious persecutions of Catholics and the trials of Catholic clergy in Belarus and Russia were in very many cases provoked by this same Polish political foundation. If the Communist government regards religion in general as a kind of "opium" and shapes its attitude to religion from that point of view, then Catholicism mixed with Polishness, Catholicism as a means of Polonizing the Belarusians, is still more disagreeable to every Communist and quite incomprehensible to him.

At the trial of Archbishop Cieplak and Fr. Butkiewicz in Moscow, Belarusian priests such as Khvetska and Yunevich were condemned together with them. And as to these last, we must say that they suffered (naturally, unknowingly) rather more for Polish Catholicism than for Catholicism pure and simple. That is understandable. When two horses are harnessed to one shaft and one of them falls into an abyss, he easily drags the other in after him.

Our thoughts are confirmed by the Russian paper "Ekho", published in Kovno, in its article "Verkh izobretatelnosti".**) Here is what this paper writes about Polish Catholicism in Soviet Belarus:

…"Thanks to the Riga treaty, which placed the Catholics living in Russia under the guardianship of Poland, the Polish endeks have become the full masters of Soviet Belarus. On orders from Poland, the Belarusian Catholic clergy are being transferred to Russia, and in their place Polish endek priests are appointed, on whom is laid the duty of Polonizing the country.

Such well-known Belarusian figures as Fathers Ihnat Zhaunarovich, Ant. Yarmalovich, Uladz. Kunde, Aliaksandr Sak and others have been sent away to Russia…

The policy of Polonization, or rather the methods of Polonization, are pursued with great energy under the protection of Polish Communists, who serve as a cloak for the endeks. In parishes where there never was Polish, services in Polish have been introduced in place of the earlier Belarusian ones; such was the fate of Fashchouka, to which the well-known Polish patriot and chauvinist Wojnar has been appointed priest, and of many other villages.

The national policy carried out through the church harms Catholicism itself, for people are beginning to understand Catholicism as a weapon of the Polish lords…

The Belarusian bishops who direct the Belarusian Catholic church — Łoziński and Ropp — live in Warsaw and from there, in accordance with the wishes of the Polish government, give orders to the clergy subordinate to them who live in Belarus.

Need one say how this state of affairs angers Belarusians, and especially Belarusian Catholics, who see that the church is turning into an agency of the endeks?!

And they appeal to the Holy See with a request that the direction of the Catholic church be taken out of Polish hands and that a foreign bishop be appointed.

The development of Polish annexationist policy in the realm of communism — that is the strange grimace of life that surpasses everything"…

The surprise of the paper "Ekho" at such a position of Catholicism in Soviet Belarus is quite understandable. Only its words are incomprehensible, that Belarusian Catholics, in order to escape from such an abnormal religious situation, are appealing to the Holy See with a request to appoint a foreign bishop for them.

This is not a way out. At the present moment, when the Belarusian movement has developed quite widely, when there is already a considerable number of Belarusian Catholic clergy and when in Eastern Belarus the beginnings of Belarusian statehood have already arisen, a Belarusian Bishopric, with a bishop who is necessarily a conscious Belarusian, can and should be created to direct the Catholic church in Soviet Belarus.

This is the only means against Polish Catholicism in the Belarusian lands, which is harmful both to Catholicism and to the Belarusian people. Talks with Rome about this must begin without delay, and it is high time that Rome understood it.

*) In writing about Polish Catholicism in Belarus, we must note that Russian Orthodoxy among us is likewise harmful and abnormal.

**) When this paper was published is unknown, since we have not managed to