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July 6, 2008

Interview with Cardinal Dziwisz

By Joyce Duriga

EDITOR

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz’s visit to the city was highly anticipated within the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Polish community. The former secretary of the beloved Polish pope shared his thoughts with the Catholic New World on life with Pope John Paul II and his life now as archbishop of Krakow by responding to written questions.

Catholic New World: How is your work going in Krakow now? What are the challenges facing the Catholic Church in Poland today?

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz: Three years ago, Pope Benedict XVI asked me to become bishop of Archdiocese of Krakow, a great community of Christ’s disciples with tradition going back over 1,000 years. I “returned” to Krakow after 27 years of ministry for Pope John Paul II. I returned enriched with all that we experienced together in the universal church.

Certainly, while working in the Vatican, I kept in close touch with my mother archdiocese. Now I serve the archdiocese as its shepherd. This defines the character of my current ministry. I try to be a shepherd for people to whom I was sent. I go to parishes, say Mass, preach the Gospel, confer the sacrament of confirmation. I meet a lot of different groups, communities and individuals.

In my pastoral care, I pay special attention to priests, since it is thanks to them that we can perform the basic ministries. Also, close to me are consecrated persons, who bring into the archdiocese the treasure of prayer, holiness and apostolic involvement, according to their own charisms. There is a great apostolic potential in lay Catholics and their impact on our church is increasing.

The Catholic Church in Poland faces many challenges. After several decades of the communist regime, we have lived in a free country for about 20 years now. Freedom is a gift, but it is also a challenge. And this is what we are learning: how to take advantage of the gift of freedom in a responsible manner, how to create true bonds within communities, how to use politics as prudent care for the common good, how to help the poor.

The church through its social teachings wants to support all initiatives and processes of a democratic society. A great challenge is secularization, knocking at our door. Another challenge is the Polish family. We are disturbed with a large number of divorces. We are pleased to see that, nevertheless, the society demonstrates increased sensitivity and belief in the sanctity of human life — from conception to natural death.

Formation of the younger generation is another challenge. I mentioned just a few challenges, because the question would require a much broader response, beyond the scope of the interview.

CNW: Many people know you because of your relationship with Pope John Paul II. Why do you think the pope chose you as his secretary so many years ago?

Dziwisz: Archbishop Karol Wojtyla chose me as his personal secretary in 1966 because I was “at hand.” I was staying at the seminary in Krakow and studied there. He did not have to look for me and get me from far away. It all started very simply.

Nobody could have predicted that this relationship would last for 40 years and nobody could have written a script for it.

As far as my skills, I think some things I learned as I was doing the tasks assigned. I learned mostly from the cardinal himself. After all, I was the witness of his everyday prayer, his intense work, his meetings with people, his unrepeatable style.

CNW: Did you expect the world to react the way it did to his death?

Dziwisz: The world reacted to John Paul II’s death in the way that surpassed everything imaginable. We can all agree with an opinion shared by a lot of people that through his suffering and dying the pope wrote a great encyclical. It is hard to describe the deepest dimension of what the pope’s death released in human hearts and consciousness — how many deepest feelings of solidarity, compassion, gratefulness, how many conversions and reformations it brought.

The day of his funeral was a great manifestation of faith. God’s people were perfectly correct in taking the most important message from the figure of the passing pope — his holiness. And this belief is growing. This is why the figure of God’s servant John Paul II is still very present in the life of today’s church.

CNW: How does his life and ministry carry over into your own today?

Dziwisz: Years spent with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, and then John Paul II were the lesson of my life. I am aware that 39 years of the great life adventure and work with such a great and holy man formed my personality, my way of looking at the world and church, my approach to people and problems.

Obviously, I am not Karol Wojtyla. I have my own life history, my skills and my limitations. This is why while drawing inspiration from the great master, I am also trying to live and work as Stanislaw Dziwisz.

Certainly I live by John Paul’s II message and deliver it, because it is the message of the Gospel. John Paul II preached Jesus Christ in a convincing way. Christ was the passion of his life. Every bishop should have this kind of passion: to preach Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.

CNW: We have many Poles living here in Chicago, as you know. Having lived outside your native country for so many years, do you have any advice to give the Poles here on how to maintain their connection with their homeland as well as how to assimilate into their present culture?

Dziwisz: Knowing one’s roots is important in the life of every person. We come to this world within a certain community. Each of us is a link in a long chain of subsequent generations. Knowing where we come from allows us to establish our own identity, feeling of belonging to a culture, tradition, language.

This, in turn, should help people to open up to others and their sets of values. John Paul II never hid his Polish identity. Oftentimes, he talked about it from the highest pinnacles. He was not a man from nowhere.

At the same time, the awareness of Polish identity made him a universal man. He excluded nobody from his pastoral care. All people he met were somehow close to him, also those of different thinking and believes.

I am happy to see that so many of my fellow countrymen live here in the United States. They are not foreigners here. They are here to contribute to the American society with its great history, its rich culture going back to the best that other cultures have to offer.

On one hand it is important to cherish ties to Polish tradition and all the best things that come with it. On the other hand, people need to open up and co-create a community with others that live and work under the American sky. This attitude of openness and universalism unifies, builds ties. After all, all of us on the earth are children of our Father in heaven. So all of us are brothers and sisters.

CNW: What do you think the Chicago community can learn from or how they can benefit from the Polish people who have relocated here?

Dziwisz: It is not an easy question. It assumes that Polish people have something special to offer. But what would that be? For one thing, Polish people are known for their devotion to faith and the church. The Catholic Church in Poland was always with the nation, also during the most difficult times of war, the communist rule, lack of freedom.

We can share the experience of dual faithfulness: faithfulness of the church toward the nation and faithfulness of the nation toward the church. The church is a community of faith, prayer, worship, but also a community of solidarity, brotherhood, culture.

Knowing assumes learning about each other. We can only wish that Polish people living in Chicago got to be known as people who are open, transparent, making contacts and ties to others, ready to share their authentic experience of faith and solidarity.