158 PIOTR H. KOSICKI
tus of “Mother of the Church.” The Polish primate clearly imag-
ined this as a natural consequence of the 1956 “surrender into
maternal servitude” with which he had launched Poland’s Great
Novena. It was this approach that would earn Wyszyński the
scorn of many “progressive” Council fathers belonging to the Do-
mus Mariae network.
Although the Council voted by a narrow margin on Octo-
ber 29, 1963, to include Mary in the draft schema for the dogmatic
constitution on the Church (the future Lumen gentium), the final
vote one year later on the title of “Mother of the Church” failed.
Wyszyński took this as a personal defeat. The Polish security ap-
paratus, meanwhile, interpreted the proposal’s failure as a sign of
its own success.
Wyszyński was relieved the next year to hear personally from
Paul VI that, since the Council had refused to elevate Mary to
“Mother of the Church,” the pontiff would issue his own declara-
tion. Wyszyński learned from an expert belonging to the Coun-
cil’s Theological Commission, Father Carolus Balic, that “this was
a true miracle. The Holy Father was broken up over what to do.
He was being lobbied on all sides by delegations, memoranda,
and opponents of the initiative. It is only the bravery of the Pri-
mate of Poland that made the pope take this brave, independent
decision. I underscore here that this was the great manly achieve-
ment of Primate Wyszyński.”97
Poland on the Banks of the Tiber
For Poland, Vatican II was as much about politics as theology or
philosophy. The bishops’ departure for Rome transplanted to the
Eternal City conflicts once internal to Communist Poland. What
had been a national story of church and state overnight turned
- Quoted in Raina, Kardynał Wyszyński, 5:117–20.