ers and intellectual architects were Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Ja-
nusz Zabłocki, who had become close friends over the course of
five years spent together in PAX.150 In the end, they rejected the
organization’s Stalinism, but they continued to aspire to harmo-
nizing Catholicism with state socialism. For them, Więź became a
vehicle for promoting Catholic socialism—whatever the Marxist
establishment thought of their efforts.
Mazowiecki was, both philosophically and personally, very
close to Eska. As he put it in 1965, Eska’s ideas had “been at the
very core of Więź’s mission since the moment of its founding,”
even if not articulated in so many words.151 To understand Eska,
one must first understand Mazowiecki.
In May 1963, Mazowiecki traveled to Brussels to deliver a paper
at a conference organized by Informations Catholiques Internation-
ales, in which he argued that “Poland is changing from a Catholic
country into a secular, pluralistic country”152 and that “one can-
not fight for humanism within the socialist world while remaining
completely apart from it.”153 Read together, Mazowiecki’s state-
ments show that ZNAK took state socialism and its philosophical
exponents seriously. Poland’s top lay activists saw Vatican II as nei-
ther a rejection of communism nor an escape from behind the Iron
Curtain, but rather as a set of guidelines to be followed in their
aspirations to be both good Catholics and good “citizens” of their
VATICAN II AND POLAND 175- For example, Zabłocki, “Mazowiecki mój przeciwnik (10): Dni-burze, o
których wiesz tylko ty,” Ład, no. 327 (1991). - “Motywy, dążenia i braki postawy otwartej—dyskusja wokół książki Ju-
liusza Eski Kościół otwarty,” Więź, no. 81 (1965): 19. - Mazowiecki, “Odnowa polskiego katolicyzmu: Misja i wolność świeckich
w kraju socjalistycznym,” Więź, no. 658 (2014): 115. The Polish-language original of
the Brussels lecture was never published during Mazowiecki’s lifetime. This author
discovered the typescript in the WIĘŹ Archives (Warsaw). Więź then published the
text with a new title. An abridged version of the text appeared in French in 1964 as
Mazowiecki, “Mission et liberté des laïcs en pays socialiste,” in Mission et liberté des
laïcs dans le monde, by Georges Hourdin et al. (Paris: Cerf, 1964), 33–50. On the Brus-
sels trip more generally, see Kosicki, “*,” Więź, no. 658 (2014): 123–26. - Mazowiecki, “Odnowa polskiego katolicyzmu,” 116.