Poland Honours Priest Slain in 1984
Poles lit candles and laid flowers on Tuesday at the grave of pro-Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko, abducted and killed by the communist secret police 20 years ago in a murder described in parliament as "one of the last acts of terror" by the former regime.
Popieluszko's mother, Marianna, and his two brothers were joined by state and city officials and some 3,000 people at a Mass celebrated by the head of the Polish church, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, at Warsaw's St. Stanislaw church, where Popieluszko is buried.
Popieluszko was abducted and killed by secret police on Oct. 19, 1984. His body was stuffed in a sack weighed down with stones and thrown into the Vistula River. The killing outraged public opinion in the largely Roman Catholic country and abroad, and strengthened opposition to the regime, which fell in 1989.
More than 600,000 Poles attended his funeral, and communist authorities conducted a quick trial in which four officers were convicted. All have since been released from prison.
Lawmakers in parliament marked the anniversary by unanimously approving a resolution that condemned the murder by officers "duped by propaganda of lies and hatred."
Popieluszko "courageously defended the ideals of truth, freedom and justice," said the resolution, which described the murder as "one of the last acts of terror of the state against its own citizens."
Popieluszko held "masses for the homeland" at the St. Stanislaw church that attracted crowds of worshippers. The Vatican opened a process leading toward his beatification, the first step toward sainthood, in 2001.
A museum dedicated to the life of the priest opened Saturday.
Solidarity emerged from strikes by disgruntled shipyard workers in 1980, and became eastern Europe's first free trade union and the leading force against the Soviet-backed communist government during the last years of the Cold War.
"I knew that ... we would all feel obliged by this death to fight better" for freedom, Solidarity founder Lech Walesa told TVN24 television on Tuesday.