FROM POLAND

NUMBERS ARE ALARMING
IN POLAND THERE ARE LESS AND LESS MARRIAGES

Priests are alarming: the number of marriages is decreasing systematically. In 2013 there was the smallest number of contracted marriages in Poland from 1945, whereas the number of informal couples is still increasing.

Although the percentage of people living in the so-called free couples may seem small, because it is 3 per cent of the society, there is a fact that their number has doubled in the recent 10 years. And nearly 650 thousand people (from nearly 400 thousand in 2002) chose this form of couple. Facing this tendency, the Church must elaborate a new strategy of proceeding – it was said during a conference ‘Concubinage? And what next?’, organized in Warsaw by the National Centre of Pastoral Ministry of Families and the Institute of the Catholic Church Statistics.

As Fr. dr. Wojciech Sadłoń from the Institute of the Catholic Church Statistics. emphasized, the number increase of concubinage in the last decade has been accompanied by the increasing number of divorces and this is even by 40 per cent – in 2013 nearly 65 thousand married couples got divorced. Statistics also show that other worrying tendencies: nearly half of people living in concubinage, as Fr. dr. Sadłoń said, did not reach the age of 34 years. Two thirds of them accept intercourse before church wedding and life with each other ‘for a trial’.

How to prevent it? New initiatives are urgently needed – it was emphasized during the conference. The National Pastoral Ministry of Families gave the motto: ‘Keep calm and don’t shack up with each other’ and started an offensive which is to encourage young people to contract marriages. Its purpose is, among the others, a different attitude during preparations for marriage. A dialogue is necessary – emphasizes dr. Jerzy Grzybowski, a co-founder of the movement Marriage Meetings. In his opinion, it is necessary to change the presentation and the image of a marriage in pre-wedding catechesis. It would be necessary to give up specialist conferences and focus on a different way of presentation – showing a marriage not as enslaving relationships, but as opening up to grace which will make it easy for young people to realize their dreams about permanence and happiness. It is also necessary to remember that work with young people should not finish with contracting a marriage, but it should last on. So that they would feel that they are backed up in the Church. (wd)

AN EXHIBITION ‘CURSED SOLDIERS. HISTORY WHICH TOUCHES ME’

An open-air exhibition ‘Cursed Soldiers. History which touches me’ was opened on 27 February 2014 on the square of Fr. gen. Adam Studzieński OP in Cracow. The exposition is the effect of a photographic contest for which over 500 photos had been sent. Their authors are mainly young people. The exhibition is going to be exposed on 27 February – 14 March 2014. Cursed Soldiers are heroes of the anti-communist underground, who in the defence of independence of Poland, and fighting for the right to self-determination and realization of democratic ventures of the Polish society, were using weapon to oppose the Soviet aggression and the communist regime imposed by force.

It is estimated that in the years 1944-56, 120-180 thousand people, mainly soldiers of the National Army, were participating in groups of the so-called second conspiracy, who were supported by other thousand Poles helping them.

WADOWICE
A REPLICA OF THE BOAT FROM JESUS’ TIMES IN THE MUSEUM FAMILY HOUSE OF JOHN PAUL II

The replica of the boat from 2 thousand years ago is among objects presented within the new exposition of Museum Family House of John Paul II in Wadowice. The opening of the papal museum was planned on 9 April 2014 – the fragment of the boat which is in the exhibition, is 3 m long and is going to be one of the elements of ‘The sphere of choice’, devoted to the election of Karol Wojtyła to the Holy See in 1978 – informed Maria Budzińska, a specialist for marketing in the museum in Wadowice. The boat placed here is to be a symbol of the boat of Peter and also the Catholic Church. It also refers to the words once spoken by cardinal Stefan Wyszyński: ‘Peter had the boat and Karol has a boat’.

BRIEFLY

Action of collecting signatures in the defence of the State Forests is still going on, although initiators of the referendum concerning the State Forests and the trade of the Polish land have already collected a required number of signatures.

At present there is not a direct danger for the life of Polish missionaries – stated the Polish Foreign Ministry after a meeting of working team for situation of missionaries in RSA.

Defence Ministry signed a contract for supply of a system of training military pilots. An Italian plane M-346 Master was chosen. The contract is for the supply of eight machines and modifications.

Under the motto: ’Loving mother always sober’ on Sunday 2 March 2014 the 47th Week of Prayers for Sobriety of Nation started. Bishop Tadeusz Bronakowski – the delegate of the Polish Episcopate for apostolate of sobriety notes that overusing alcohol by women becomes a bigger and bigger social problem.

Medical surgeries receive 3 thousand complaints every year. Only 5-6 percent of cases finish with punishment.

Farmers were protesting on roads in a few provinces. In this way they were expressing their opposition against improprieties appearing in the sales of the land. Farmers think that the land gets to foreign companies via substituted people.

Civil Rights Spokesman will probably sue the act to the Constitutional Tribunal about the isolation of the most dangerous criminals. He means the loud case of Mariusz Trynkiewicz.

Poles arenearly addicted to painkillers. In this respect we take the second place in the EU and the third one in the world. In the year 2012 we took over 2 milliard of them and in the year 2013 even more.

In Poland 9 cases of AH1N1 of flu, that is, the so-called swine influenza were registered; 7 people infected by this virus were taken to hospital.

There was a dismissal of 4 Voivodes- from provinces: west-Pomeranian, lower-silesian, Silesian and of Lublin. Officially for personal reasons.

Information pages were prepared by Lidia Dudkiewicz and Fr.Paweł Rozpiątkowski – on the basis of reports of their correspondents, news of Vatican Radkio, the Catholic Information Agency, the Polish Episcopal Conference and RIRM.

(AA)

"Niedziela" 9/2014

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