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Post by hibernicus on Oct 27, 2015 19:47:50 GMT
In relation to a question which was raised on this thread, I remember seeing a pilgrimage of Poles in Ireland at Knock some years ago - quite well-attended, very shabby clothes, notably devout. I said on another thread at the time these pilgrims made me think of the 50s Irish in Britain - but I should add that I don't know what proportion of Poles in Ireland they represent
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 3, 2017 20:28:58 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 2, 2018 21:58:44 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 2, 2018 22:14:02 GMT
BTW I've been listening to different versions of the Polish national anthem on Youtube and it is certainly stirring. It was written in the 1790s by a member of the Polish exile forces fighting for the French (hence the reference to Bonaparte) in Northern Italy under the command of General Dabrowski. The video below only gives the first two verses - some of the footage seems to be from a historical film about the "Miracle on the Vistula" - the Battle of Warsaw in 1920 when Marshal Pilsudski defended Polish independence by outmanouevring a much larger (but divided) Soviet army: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N057iKYUj0c
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 7, 2019 19:01:01 GMT
Rod Dreher on a visit to Poland reports a significant generation gap in terms of practice and attachment to Catholicism, with even committed young Polish Catholics predicting that 10 years from now they'll be like Ireland (!) There is also apparently a perception among the younger generation with no memory of communism that the older generation keep talking about communism to avoid facing present-day problems. There are some interesting comments - which should of course be read with care; for example, while it seems plausible that many Poles have an inferiority complex towards the West,seeing themselves as provincial and backward, it should be borne in mind that some comments to this effect may derive from that strand of Polish nationalism which sees it as preferable to be oppressed by Russia because Russia is so backward nobody would choose to be a Russian rather than a Pole. The Dublin observer who notes declining crowds at the Polish Masses in St Audoen's is also worth noting. One a more cheerful note,there was a young Polish family next to me on the March for Life on Saturday. Sto Lat! www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/alas-for-fortress-poland-decline-of-faith/
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 12, 2019 17:15:05 GMT
The story of Fr Jerzy Popieluzsko, murdered by the secret police in Communist Poland. I remember hearing about it at the time, but not all the details or their full significance. As readers of this board will know, some of my attitudes in the later Cold War era were problematic or ignorant - but this is a reminder of the central evil of Marxism-Leninism. Another recent reminder of this was reading a new English translation of some fragmentary memoirs by an Albanian priest (later a bishop) of the persecution there. I was shocked to realise that the worst oppression - the period when Albania was officially an atheist state and organised religion was illegal - began in 1967, in my own lifetime. How lucky we were by comparison, and how little we estimated the treasure the faithful there suffered and died to preserve. I remember when I was at university in the late 80s there were a couple of cranks on campus who used to stick up pictures of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha and turn up to eulogise Stalin at a lecture by the Soviet ambassador (who retorted "I had to live under Stalin. You didn't.") I hope they didn't fully realise what they were eulogising. As my favourite George Bernard Shaw quotation puts it: "Must a Christ die in every age for those who have no imagination?" www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/fr-jerzy-popieluzsko-poland-long-road/
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 12, 2019 17:58:12 GMT
The story of Fr Jerzy Popieluzsko, murdered by the secret police in Communist Poland. I remember hearing about it at the time, but not all the details or their full significance. As readers of this board will know, some of my attitudes in the later Cold War era were problematic or ignorant - but this is a reminder of the central evil of Marxism-Leninism. Another recent reminder of this was reading a new English translation of some fragmentary memoirs by an Albanian priest (later a bishop) of the persecution there. I was shocked to realise that the worst oppression - the period when Albania was officially an atheist state and organised religion was illegal - began in 1967, in my own lifetime. How lucky we were by comparison, and how little we estimated the treasure the faithful there suffered and died to preserve. I remember when I was at university in the late 80s there were a couple of cranks on campus who used to stick up pictures of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha and turn up to eulogise Stalin at a lecture by the Soviet ambassador (who retorted "I had to live under Stalin. You didn't.") I hope they didn't fully realise what they were eulogising. As my favourite George Bernard Shaw quotation puts it: "Must a Christ die in every age for those who have no imagination?" www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/fr-jerzy-popieluzsko-poland-long-road/The problem might have been too much imagination. Not a flippant comment. I am increasingly aware of how much evil comes through the imagination, including my own. For the imagination of man is evil from his youth. Certainly that arch anti-romanticist Shaw seems to have let his own imagination get the better of him when he visited the Soviet Union. Thankfully God also speaks to us through the imagination.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 15, 2019 21:18:47 GMT
Fair enough point - the context in the play is that an English character who regards Joan as a witch is constantly calling for her to be burned alive, but is horrified when he sees this actually take place. (Now that I think of it, Shaw is overstating things - burnings weren't all that uncommon in Lancastrian England so he might have been expected to have seen one already. He is probably thinking of his own time, when executions still took place but in private.) As you say, it could just as easily be argued that the character has too much imagination; that he has created a fantasy which seals him off from reality until it is too late.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 15, 2019 21:25:02 GMT
More from Rod Dreher on the situation in Poland. One theory this undermines is the claim that the implementation of the Vatican II reforms was done "properly" in Poland which should therefore serve as a role-model for other countries. (This I think is one of George Weigel's lines, but it may not have originated with him.) Claims that there was an exportable Polish model seem a bit like the widespread belief among the Irish clergy in the 50s that Ireland had basically solved the problems of evangelisation and retaining popular practice, and therefore had nothing to learn from elsewhere. (I'm not saying the situations are identical but there's an ominous resemblance.) www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/polands-crisis/
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 5, 2019 22:30:10 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 30, 2019 21:42:48 GMT
www.firstthings.com/tag/polandSome recent articles from FIRST THINGS on the Polish situation, and how the electoral victory of Law and Justice should not conceal the likely problems that lie ahead.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 25, 2020 23:05:05 GMT
Witold Pilecki was a Polish Resistance member who volunteered to become an inmate in Auschwitz at the behest of the Resistance (to organize resistace within the camp and smuggle out reports of what was going on there). He was executed in 1947 after a Stalinist show trial. This review argues that while the recent biography by Jack Fairweather, which brought Pilecki's story to the attention of Anglophone readers, is a fine piece of work, it fails to recognise the full significance of Catholicism, particularly THE IMITATION OF CHRIST, as a motivation for Pilecki's heroism: kirkcenter.org/reviews/an-imitation-of-christ/
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 22, 2020 22:50:27 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 14, 2020 20:01:54 GMT
Rod Dreher's pessimistic view of the long-term prospects for Polish Catholicism. His Polish contacts think the future is gloomy, and this has only been masked by President Duda's re-election (which depended on the support of older voters and was opposed by a large majority of younger voters - in other words, this is likely to change when the older generation dies off). They also claim that the Law and Justice government has not been very competent in administrative matters. www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/poland-right-andrzej-duda-pyrrhic-victory/
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 28, 2020 18:01:31 GMT
Rod Dreher reports on, and invites comment on, the widespread protests against the recent Polish Supreme Court decision tightening abortion laws (banning the abortion of handicapped children). www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/poland-pro-abortion-mob/As one might expect, the BBC have been promoting these protests as hard as they can.
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