Innsbruck, October 31, 1984
The Murder of a Priest
Eleven days after he had been abducted, the body of the Polish priest Jerzy Popieluszko was found yesterday in a reservoir of the Vistula River near Torun. Popieluszko, who was closely connected with the Solidarity movement, was brutally murdered and thrown into the River. That his murderers were “officials” of the Ministry of the Interior, or respectively members of the Secret Police, leaves one just as dumbfounded as the fact that the body of the priest could not be found for days after his assassins had confessed. Who were the instigators and wire pullers of this crime? In what murky depths will the Polish tragedy still have to sink?
Note
[Jerzy Popieluszko was a young priest who led a small parish church in Warsaw. From January 1982 on, he advocated nonviolent resistance against the Communist regime. Over time, his sermons were heard by hundreds of thousands of people. Popieluszko became a national symbol of the resistance. See George Weigel, Witness to Hope, p. 460.]