A Martyr's Lament

The immortal legacy of Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko

It is 40 years to the day since Polish anti-Communist hero Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko was captured and murdered. For several years, the gentle, physically frail priest had been a thorn in the side of the state. As a chaplain for the solidarity workers who banded together under Lech Walesa, he kept hope alive. His sermons were broadcast all over Radio Free Europe. His “masses for the fatherland” drew great crowds of people. You can find old TV footage of these services, Fr. Jerzy speaking quietly and deliberately, the people holding up their rosaries and crucifixes while making a “V” sign.

The police were watching the sermons too, of course. In July 1983, one of his last messages was reported to General Wojciech Jaruzelski, de facto leader of “the Polish People’s Republic.” Jaruzelski’s orders were simple: “Do something to him so that he stops barking.”

He was urged to protect himself, at one point encouraged to take political asylum in America, where he had family. But he could not abandon his flock. “The most they can do is kill me,” he said. So he continued to work, not just the work of a celebrity priest but the quiet, day-to-day work of a true parish minister, hearing confessions, visiting the sick. When the doorbell rang to announce the first bomb attack on his flat, he was too tired to answer it. He had collapsed in bed at 2 in the morning after preparing Christmas presents for children in the hospital.

Some steelworkers volunteered round-the-clock protection, in one of the men’s words guarding him “like a treasure, like a brother’s brother.” But they could not protect him on the night of October 19, 1984, as he was making the long drive home from a Mass for the Working People in a remote town. His bodyguard threw himself out of the car and escaped to raise the alarm, but it would be too late. No one was coming to save Fr. Jerzy.

Estimates vary on exactly how long they held and tortured him before finally tying him up and throwing him in the Vistula. The autopsy revealed water and blood in his lungs. His body was so brutalized that it couldn’t be identified at first, even by dear friends. One of his brothers finally spotted a telltale birthmark on his chest. He was 37 years old.