VATICAN II AND POLAND 133er Communist-run countries with significant Catholic popula-
tions, Poland’s primate never stood trial after his arrest in 1953,
which—unlike for Stepinac, Mindszenty, or Beran—was kept of-
ficially secret, with state authorities announcing only that they
had “suspended him in his functions.”22
To the extent, then, that the Catholic Church in Poland was a
“Church of Silence” in the postwar decade, this was far less true
than in any of the other countries discussed in this volume. Not
only did the clergy and bishops have more maneuvering room
than their counterparts elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain, so did
the Polish laity. Catholic charities and student associations were
active until 1949; then they were co-opted, their more recalcitrant
membership arrested.23 The high-circulation Catholic journal Ty-
godnik Powszechny (Universal weekly), founded in April 1945 on
the authority of Kraków archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha, ap-
peared without interruption until March 1953, when editors re-
fused to print an obituary for Joseph Stalin.24 The Catholic Uni-
versity of Lublin—the only nonpublic university behind the Iron
Curtain—never closed its doors, though its faculty, students, and
staff faced significant pressure, and state agencies regularly im-
posed politically motivated quotas, caps, and taxes.25
Life in Stalinist Poland was difficult—occasionally bloody, or
even lethal—for members of these organizations. Yet there was
never any question of eliminating the Catholic Church from Pol-
ish public life. Even the agenda of “nationalizing” the Church was
kielecki 1895–1963 (Kielce: Kuria Diecezjalna, 1991), 225–70; Żaryn, “Ostatnie wyg-
nanie biskupa Stanisława Adamskiego (1952–1956),” Więź, no. 474 (1998): 164–72.
- On state policy toward Primate Stefan Wyszyński, see Bartłomiej Noszczak,
Polityka państwa wobec Kościóla rzymskokatolickiego w Polsce w okresie internowania
prymasa Stefana Wyszyńskiego 1953–1956 (Warsaw: IPN-KŚZpNP, 2008). - Andrzej Friszke, Między wojną a więzieniem 1945–1953 (Warsaw: Biblioteka
WIĘZI, 2015), 134–204. - Christina Manetti, “Catholic Responses to Poland’s ‘New Reality,’ 1945–
1953,” East European Politics and Societies 26, no. 2 (2012): 296–312. - Noszczak, Polityka państwa wobec Kościoła rzymskokatolickiego, 266–300.