Paweł Smoleński

A county-level moral revolution

About the book

In the name of faith, the king, and the law

If words could become deeds, just like that, at one’s calling, then Jesus Christ would already be the king of the Republic, since just prior to Benedict 16th’s pilgrimage. It was precisely then, on the second day of the sessions of the Polish Republic’s Eighteenth Parliament, that Artur Górski, a thirty-six-year-old Member of Parliament, a PiS (Law and Justice) party member from Warsaw with a doctorate in history, a conservative and monarchist by conviction, submitted an announcement in which he reminded those present that: “In order to join the nations forming the spiritual community of God’s Holy Kingdom, Poland surrendered herself to the rule of the King of Kings by the power of the authority of her ruler Mieszko I, accepting Holy Baptism”.
Announcing such a postulate, the Member of Parliament – as he himself believes – was following in the footsteps of the Polish Tatra highlander Rozalia Celakówna, humble servant of the Catholic Church and mystic from the early years of the last century.
And since the Member of Parliament feels that the fatherland’s situation today is none too good, he went on in the parliamentary sessions to say: “Poland needs powerful backing, so that after leaving Egypt she may pass unharmed through this wasteland, these times of renouncement, and in the end achieve the happy existence that the nation has obstinately set its heart on in building the Fourth Republic. Our fatherland is in the direst need today of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to sit upon its spiritual throne (...) For several years now our nation has been consistently and firmly demanding this act of enthronement from the authorities of the Polish Republic. Parliament’s and the Senate’s chancelleries and the representatives of state authorities are constantly being sent reminders of this issue, not only from various social and political organizations, but from private individuals”.
You could see that for Parliamentarian Górski the enthronement of Jesus was the most serious of matters, the subject of consultation in earlier conversations in Parliament lobbies and also enjoying the support of dozens of deputies from other political groups. And though he talked about “incessant reminders” and “the nation insisting” he did not go beyond fuzzy generalities, and was applauded for his speech.
So it is odd that Parliament has treated this postulate of enthronement with little urgency. Parliamentarian Górski assures us that this is only due to the present political atmosphere, which might treat the initiative in a shallow manner and change it into an immediate, but passionately shameless, political game.
So let’s remind ourselves just what was being argued in this wouldbe earthly kingdom of Jesus.
The right-wing-nationalist-Catholic-Post-Communist coalition of PiS (Law and Justice), Samoobrona (Self-defence) and LPR (League of Polish Families) had only just been established, what quietened the atmosphere in the Parliament, at least for some time. The opposition, although it did so through the mouths of politicians of Catholic-Nationalist provenance, thundered that Poland was being ruled by a “clique devoid of ideals” and that the Coalition Cabinet was “not so much a bench of ministers as a bench of suspects in the dock”. And it proposed to follow up on the earlier idea of the Kaczyński brothers and investigate the former careers of the Samoobrona party’s members as secret government agents. PiS replied that this idea had in the meantime lost its relevance.
On the President’s initiative, the former manager of the first Solidarity government’s foreign office became the Minister for Foreign Affairs. This immediately generated the commentary that she was simply unsuitable for the position.
And so on, and so forth. ...
This was indeed a lousy time to be handing over the Republic’s spiritual throne to Jesus.

Translated by Richard Biały