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Murdered Solidarity priest to be beatified

06 June 2010 03:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Up to 250,000 faithful are expected Sunday in Warsaw for the beatification of Jerzy Popieluszko, a Roman Catholic priest and opposition activist murdered 25 years ago by Poland’s communist secret police, APA reports quoting news.yaho.com website.
Archbishop Angelo Amato, the Vatican’s Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will represent Pope Benedict XVI at the beatification mass (0900 GMT) in central Warsaw which 100 bishops are also to attend.
The open-air ceremonies are to take place in Warsaw’s sprawling Pilsudski Square, a highly symbolic venue where in 1979 the freshly-elected Polish-born Pope John Paul II celebrated an historic mass during his first pilgrimage to then communist Poland.
Popieluszko’s relics are to be carried in procession through Warsaw and laid to rest at the "Temple of Divine Providence", an imposing church in the suburb of Wilanow, some 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) from Pilsudski Square.
In 2001, the Vatican opened Popieluszko’s beatification process, which could lead to his eventual canonisation as a saint, while in 2008 the pope agreed to fast-track the murdered priest’s case.
A vocal supporter of the anti-communist Solidarity trade union who served at the church of St. Stanislaw Kostka in the Warsaw suburb of Zoliborz, Popieluszko was 37 when he was brutally murdered by the communist secret police and has already been recognised as a martyr.
On October 19, 1984, Popieluszko was kidnapped by three secret police officers after celebrating his last mass in Bydgoszcz, central Poland.
The priest was tortured to death before his body was thrown into the Vistula river, 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of Warsaw.
Identified thanks to the priest’s chauffeur, the three secret police officers directly responsible for his murder were jailed for between 14 and 25 years.
No high ranking official was found guilty however. Two secret service generals were tried but acquitted due to lack of evidence.
As chaplain of the anti-communist Solidarity trade union, Popieluszko symbolised the peaceful struggle of the Solidarity opposition against Poland’s communist-era totalitarian regime.
Celebrated after the December 1981 imposition of the martial law crackdown against the Solidarity opposition by Poland’s then leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Popieluszko’s "Masses for the Homeland" drew thousands, to the chagrin of communist authorities.
Preaching only peaceful resistance against the communist regime he urged faithful to "overcome evil with good".
In 1988, Polish film director Agnieszka Holland made "To Kill A Priest" starring Christopher Lambert as Popieluszko.