Nine Days that Shook Poland

...Anna Husarska, a frequent contributor to The New Le ader, is a staff writer for the Polish newsweekly Spotkania...

...Parliamentary deputies from the Christian National Alliance, who are pushing for the abortion ban, want to stop the advertising of condoms as effective for AIDS prevention, arguing that this is "homosexual propaganda...

...To a people that only two years ago recovered its freedom, he issued a warning against "a freedom that enslaves...

...I thought of this one evening during the Pope's June 1 -9 trip here, as the regular 7:15p.m...

...Some warned in private that "Black [i.e...

...Nor did they exhibit the enthusiasm that marked his visits in 1979, '83 and '87...

...heads of regional governments went on a pilgrimage to the Czestochowa shrine of the Black Madonna...

...Only on the question of fasting were more than half ready to follow the Church...

...Opponents of abortion are equally explicit...

...The Youngest Poles Greet the Pope," blared the banner, which featured an enormous unmistakable picture captioned "12 Week Old Human Fetus...

...Small wonder that more respondents pointed to the Church than to the Parliament, the President or the bureaucracy...

...A recent opinion poll asked, "Who governs in Poland...

...In other words, the great majority of Poles are unhappy with the clergy meddlingin politics...

...He was scolding his countrymen —reminding them that they are supposed to scrupulously observe the whole decalogue, cautioning them against the dangers of a consumer-oriented life (a very new danger, since for the last 45 years there was not much to consume here...

...In addition, three daily roundups recapped the main events of his travels across the country, complete with commentaries by lay reporters and priests (who took advantage of the occasion to urge viewers to attend their local parish...

...It is not that Karol Wojtyla was unaware of the mood in his homeland...

...Thus, barring an unanticipated change in the situation before the first 100 per cent free parliamentary elections scheduled for the fall, the issue is likely to dominate the campaign...

...clergy] is worse than Red [i.e...

...On a different level the Catholic religion is penetrating an ever wider spectrum of daily life, too...

...many other programs were canceled or rescheduled so that every public appearance of the Pope and many of his limited-access meetings could be televised...

...The confrontations will not be nice, let alone kind or gentle...

...on extramarital sex, 31 per cent...

...THE POPE OUT OF STEP Nine Days that Shook Poland BY ANNA HUSARSKA Warsaw When I was a little girl the Communists, then the masters in Poland, always scheduled the most popular television programs for the Catholic holy days...

...The subject is a source of heated controversy that reached a climax of sorts onMay 17, when Parliament voted down a bill that would have banned all abortions and mandated a two-year prison term for anybody performing one...

...The Pope knows his flock here is big (96 per cent of Poles are self-declared Catholics), yet he knows as well that it is not fully committed...

...They are not alone...

...During martial law after December 1981, going to church became a sign of defiance for many people...

...This is a completely new situation...

...Divorce may be the next target...

...If the state-run Polish TV were owned by the Catholic Church, its coverage could not have been better or more extensive...

...He put it politely...

...The lesson that day, of course, concerned abortion...

...As far back as April, apoll found 86 per cent of the people agreeing with the statement that "television is playing up to the Church...

...Indeed, today's dwindling church attendance is only partly due to the departure of those whose presence was motivated by the struggle against Communism...

...Thanks to a virtual lack of sex education, a shortage of contraceptives, and a decade-long waiting list for new apartments, roughly 600,000 abortions are recorded each year in Poland...

...This does not in itself make one a good Catholic, at least not in any sense that would satisfy the Vatican...

...Since its legalization in 1956, the procedure has been the primary form of birth control...

...Democratic opposition activities took place on church premises: hunger strikes, the hiding of dissidents, exhibitions of banned art, readings of underground literature, forbidden theater performances...

...A total of 1,000 extra telephone lines were installed along the Pontiff's route to accommodatethe throng of reporters and priests accompanying him...

...In the April opinion surveys ranking the nation's most trusted institutions it fell to second place, losing outto the Army...

...on divorce, 29 per cent...

...The state's elimination of subsidies for certain medications and medically related devices has resulted in the price of contraceptives tripling...

...and President Lech Walesa vetoed the electoral law because, inter alia, it did not allow for campaigning in the churches...

...In central Warsaw, traffic was stopped and parking was restricted for several days...

...During the spring debate on the abortion bill in the current still-Communist-controlled Parliament, Try buna, the newspaper of the (formerly Communist) Social Democratic Party, ran the textof the measure under the heading, "Prisoners of the Uterus and the Spermatozoa...

...Whether those nine days shook the souls of the Poles, too, is another matter...

...Immediately dissenting voices rose...

...The episcopate of Poland has launched a drive to eliminate the constitutional separation of Church and State "because it awakens negative associations with the totalitarian system...

...Actually, the reactions were more diverse than has generally been reported...

...As if that were not bad enough, the two most popular birth control pills were taken of f the market altogether, allegedly because they are not state-of-the-art...

...In fact, it is becoming a flock of mavericks and respect for the Church is declining accordingly...

...According to the public opinion polls, amere lOpercentof Poles thinks the Church-State separation is wrong...

...Goodnight cartoon show for youngsters was pre-empted by a live broadcast of his homily...

...In a country whose austerity program is so harsh that it meets International Monetary Fund standards, he praised the advantages of "to be" over "to have...

...The less devout worried about the price tag...

...Out of step again...

...Two months ago, the Deputy Health Minister said on television that all contraceptives, including condoms, should be banned...

...The day John Paul visited Warsaw, a church on his itinerary hung out a huge banner that closely resembled a billboard set up outside Parliament in May...

...But Poles do not want the Church to dominate their private lives either...

...on abortion, 24 per cent...

...As for the crowds greeting the Holy Father, they were big but not so big as expected (often chartered buses arriving at Mass sites were half empty...

...That has been underlined by a survey conducted in May to determine how many Poles are ready to accept the Catholic Church's teachings...

...In one of the letters a mother told of her 9-year-old daughter coming home after a religion class, kissing her hand and saying, "Thank you for not having me killed...

...the following month it dropped still further in the ratings...

...He had bitter words for the Parliament, which two weeks earlier had failed to voteabanonabortion, and managed to offend the few Jews in Poland and many abroad by likening abortion to the Holocaust...

...Father Tischner said confidently before the pilgrimage: "The Pope has a clear vision that morality and law are not the same thing, that the law can only say on which side one should drive, but it will not say whereto...

...These were some of the findings: On the use of contraceptives, 13 per cent...

...The reason: In vitro pregnancies involve the artificial insemination of more than one egg, but only one is implanted so the rest, it is said, are being "killed...

...rather, the Pope would pause and then people would applaud, sometimes after a priest triggered the clapping...

...The trend can be explained by other numbers: Whereas 86 per cent of the population believes the Catholic Church plays an important role in the country's political life, only 7 per cent thinks that it should do so...

...He was definitely out of step...

...For centuries, the Catholic Church was the one Polish institution that remained almost intact, serving as a vehicle for national language, culture and independent thought under foreign occupations and Soviet-imposed Communism...

...Many of the deeply devout lamented that they could not experience the papal pageant in a free Poland earlier in their lives...

...A prayer also was said at the inauguration of the new Senate hall...

...It was the Polish Pope's initial pilgrimage to his native land in 1979 that provided the impetus for the creation of the Solidarity movement...

...Before the Pope's arrival, Father Józei Tischner, a faculty member at the Academy of Catholic Theology and one of Poland's most respected philosophers—whom John Paul quoted on his previous trips here—warned against the danger of "a republic of parish priests...

...Quite the contrary, from the contents of his homilies and speeches it is apparent that he carefully studied the recent opinion polls concerning attitudes toward the Church and found them distressing...

...After John Paul's departure, Father Tischner remarked that there was "a certain emotional disharmony" between the contents of the homilies and their reception...

...they don't want its morality to become the legal norm in their country...

...And the Pope said during his latest visit that the Church "does not try to dominate any area of public life"— that is, it does not seek to meddle in nonreligjous spheres...

...Far from giving up, the Church is seeking to regain the high ground it once occupied...

...During a mass for the opening of a private beach in Stogi, near Gdansk, the sand was consecrated...

...The Pope put it more gently yet firmly: "Many of us would feel uncomfortable in a state from which God was thrown out...

...No homilies were interrupted by spontaneous outbursts of approval...

...Ongoing strikes were suspended...

...Priests are consecrating liquor stores, rowing competitions and editorial offices...

...There was none of the friendly dialogue between the Pope and the crowd that gave the three previous pilgrimages a festive air...

...The railroad put on 130 special trains to transport the faithful coming across the borders from neighboring Soviet republics, and visa requirements were waived...

...The battle, though, is far from over...

...At a Center for Children's Health the in vitro insemination department has been closed...

...The first uproar came after the réintroduction of religious instruction in the schools last September...

...Meanwhile, more or less discreetly, those in influential positions who favor the Catholic Church's views on human reproduction are insinuating them on lay life...

...But no sooner did the Communists make themselves scarce than the Church started pressing its own principles and trying to reassert its influence over public life...

...The decision to move such domestic cases from local to regional courts means that a divorce will now be more difficult to obtain, and that one possible avenue of appeal has been eliminated...

...The entire period of John Paul II's pilgrimage was a kind of "Nine Days that Shook Poland...

...He spoke sternly against the secular attractions of "Europe and Europeanness...

...They would air The Saint (starring Roger Moore) on All Saints' Day, Bonanza on Corpus Christi or Donald Duck on Easter Sunday to distract children from going to church...

...Other areas of public life were similarly affected by the visit...

...Thespreadof the HIV virus is limited to homosexuals, he added, terming them "deviants...

...At about the same time the Army chaplain was given the grade of general, but that did not improve the Church's image...

...Assurances by the deputy secretary of the episcopate that the Church would pay for the construction of altars and for repairing ruined lawns and fields did not dispel doubts about a direct state expenditure of $23.8 millionin a time of austerity...

...The polls show that the country is divided on the practice, but even many who support it disagree with the way it was resumed: There was no public debate or consultation, and the views of the government ombudsman were ignored...

...Tygodnik Powszechny, the Cracow Catholic weekly, was admonished by the local bishop for discussing the issue and running letters about it...

...Whatismore, 25 per cent feel the Church's teachings do not servethegoodofthe nation, and this proportion has risen fivefold in the last two years...

...John Paul clearly was in no mood for joking...

...He was fired, but the Polish Primate, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, defended him as a victim of intolerance and equated him to the late Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, who was imprisoned by the Communists...

...Not only the kids' stuff got bumped...