Let us reflect before we criticise

Fr. IRENEUSZ SKUBIƚ

Radio Maryja is still being attacked. The objections concern various fields of its activities and they are raised against its leaders, especially its director Fr Tadeusz Rydzyk. People use all possible means to humiliate his person and work. I listen to some programmes of Radio Maryja. Once I watched an interview with Capt. Zbigniew Sulatycki and his team on TV Trwam. They spoke about the collection that had been organised by the committee aiming to buy the Gdansk shipyard. I think that the matter was satisfactorily explained and thus the charges against Radio Maryja were refuted. Sometimes it is worth getting interested in the programmes of Radio Maryja and TV Trwam. I can assure you that we will look at the opinions concerning this station in a different way and we will regard many opinions, which the mass media express, as badly unfair. The Western mass media informed that Radio Maryja was accused of anti-Semitism. I often listen to the programmes of Radio Maryja and I have not noticed that Fr Rydzyk or any other religious spoke against Jewish people. So it seems that many accusations are absurd, i.e. they are simply false. And we all know that anyone can be accused of anything and can be called a criminal - it is much harder to refute charges.
When we try to look at this radio from an objective angle we will see how much good it does - for the Church and for ordinary people. The radio presents good religious teachings and prayer. TV Trwam broadcasts Masses, services and other church celebrations as well as interesting programmes for children. It also gives information and present comments that are characterised by freedom of speech. People express their sincere thanks for that.
And we do thank our Primate and the Polish Bishops for the attitude, which they adopted towards Radio Maryja, the attitude that noticed the good that the radio, having Mary as its patroness, did. The listeners of Radio Maryja are several million believers. They all deserve respect.
And it seems that as we 'give ear' to the Jasna Gora walls we should give ear to Radio Maryja and hear a groan of poor wounded people, who resort to prayer and present their concerns to God. We can also see the potential of love that hurries to help others and we can see sincere concern for our homeland, which those who govern see somewhat differently than those who are governed. We can see other countless and extremely important problems.
One should ask for God's blessing upon this work. There are certainly many problems here, as there are problems everywhere, but these problems concern first of all organisational matters, which the Bishops' Conference is surely going to explain. But we must not yield to the diktat of some media which want as if to do everything for the Bishops' Conference and even for the Apostolic See, and which unceremoniously proclaim a verdict based on misunderstanding or even hostility towards the mission of the Church. Atheists and freemasons, who fight a priori against the Church, have been doing this for a long time. They want to destroy the Catholic theology: an example of this was the publication of the Gospel of Judas, an apocrypha dating to the first centuries of Christianity, in the West. This work was called the latest discovery that questioned the New Testament Gospels. Other examples include the book and film 'The Da Vinci Code', which attack Christ and aim at destroying faith in him. This is a blasphemy and all those who participate in such an action are blasphemers. It is easy to deprive people of their faith. But what can we give them instead? What reference can people's morality receive?
And likewise we can ask, 'What are we to give people if we destroy Radio Maryja?' Nowadays we have the First Communions and the visit of Benedict XVI to Poland is approaching. And now the film against Jesus, the film that undermines the credibility of the New Testament, is being introduced. Where are we living? In what ways are we, bishops, priests and the entire Catholic community, responsible for our faith in the present Polish situation, in the situation which the wicked and freemasons produce?
It is time to realise: we must be with the Church and in the Church. We cannot let to be trampled by the enemies of the Church, the enemies that serve Satan.

"Niedziela" 20/2006

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl