Poland Under Siege After Pro-Life Ruling

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WARSAW, Poland (ChurchMilitant.com) - Leftist forces are waging a series of attacks against Poland after its pro-life ruling last Thursday.

On Oct. 22 — the Feast of Pope St. John Paul II — Poland's Constitutional Tribunal declared eugenic abortion unconstitutional, effectively ending the killing of children with genetic defects like Down syndrome.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) reacted straightaway. Evelyn Regner, Social Democrat MEP, head of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament, announced moves to fight the ruling of Poland's high court.

"We have just decided to prepare as soon as possible a strong resolution against the ban on abortion, which violates the fundamental rights of women," Regner told journalist Katarzyna Szymańska-Borginon of RMF FM, a Kraków-based news and media website.

Another MEP, Iratxe García Pérez, chimed in: "I am appalled by both the barbaric nature of the new restrictions and the way they were introduced by the Tribunal, which does not deserve its name because it is fully controlled by PiS, Kaczyński's Law and Justice Party."

Warsaw's leftist mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, was defiant in opposing the ruling.

Do Rzeczy news reported on Monday that Trzaskowski proclaimed on his Facebook page, "As long as we can, Warsaw hospitals will help Warsaw women, all Polish women who come to them."

Politicizing the decision, Trzaskowski added, "the Constitutional Tribunal, on the political order of PiS [his opposing party], decided to condemn Polish women to unimaginable torment."

The mayor accused the PiS Party of using the ruling to cover its "inefficiency in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic" while he also condoned the countrywide protests and attacks against the Church. "I still can't imagine where the ruling party had so much cynicism, so much calculated cruelty, that in the midst of a pandemic, with the hands of my pawns, forcing changes that strip women of their dignity and — let me put it bluntly — cause a justified rage."

According to him, the complete closure of termination procedures will have "many catastrophic consequences." "Illegal treatments — carried out secretly instead of in prepared facilities — will lead to further dramas, threaten the health and life of thousands of women," he said, echoing a refrain used by pro-abortion U.S. politicians in the 1970s to justify Roe v. Wade.

Civil Unrest: 'This is War'

Leftist feminist groups protested outside and sought to gain entry into Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, the site of the recent vandalism of the statue of the Crucified Christ outside the church. Feminists sought to enter the Church but were stopped by laymen guarding the entrance.

LGBT activist and Obama Foundation leader Bart Staszewski was among the protesters. Staszewski boasted on social media that the number of protestors was increasing while he also threatened priests.

"The crowd is getting thicker. If it weren't for the police, the priests would have been transported on wheelbarrows," he wrote. "It would happen sooner than they expected."

Vandals also defaced the facade of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist in Warsaw. They posted abortion slogans that read "My body ≠ your religion" and "women's hell" on the building.

On Friday, protestors gathered outside the Warsaw home of Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński of the PiS Party and tried to push through the cordon of police around his home. They carried signs that read, "This is war" and "You have blood on your hands."

A massive protest of feminists and their LGBT allies took place in Krakow during the weekend with protestors parading throughout the ancient city.

A John Paul II monument was devastated by pro-abortion activists in Poznań, Poland. Protestors carried signs that read: "Down with the blacks [priests], down with the church," and "lay Polish not Catholic" as they gathered outside the Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul.

There were also protests in Katowice, where the crowd gathered outside of, and attempted to enter, Christ the King Cathedral. They were stopped by a police cordon.

But in the face of the unrest, Catholics did not simply acquiesce.

Catholics Defend Their Churches

On Sunday, Catholic laymen stepped up to protect churches and Massgoers.

Robert Bąkiewicz, president of Independence March Association, announced over social media. "Today, my colleagues from the Independence March Guard are protecting several Warsaw churches from the ... profanations by the Satanic Left."

"Beware, cowards, for the sword of justice is already hanging over you!" he declared.

Journalist Piotr Semka gave a heads-up to the faithful. "In the coming days, we must be vigilant in and around churches, ready to support the parish priests in defending holiness," he said.

Semka listed items of vigilance:

• First, be especially careful and vigilant. It is worth informing the parish priest or other priest immediately about any disturbing phenomena or persons.
• Second, be ready to help the priests with whatever response they see fit.
• Third, if it is necessary to defend more vigorously, for example, the veneration of the Blessed Sacrament, limit direct actions to a minimum. Be decisive, but be in full control.

"I know it's not easy. This cynical attempt to desecrate many [churches] and publicize it is based on the assumption that every situation will be presented in a light unfavorable to Catholics by the media," he said.

"But there are limits to which we cannot agree to cross," Semka added. "Much courage, wisdom and prayer will be needed in the coming days."

Polish radio journalist Wojciech Cejrowski described the sounds of the protestors and activists sweeping Poland in hellish terms.

"Hell is howling and screaming," he said. "Satan is barking the mouths of his servants. Normal people, even furious, don't speak that language. What I hear in these nightly demonstrations sounds like screams in an exorcism."

Cejrowski emphasized that this is the time when "traitors' masks fall off and the weak put their souls up for sale."

But fear not, the journalist appealed. "The only task for us is to persevere on the side of the Light. Stand firm to the truth. Stay firm. Persevere. Say the Rosary ... because it is through Mary that victory comes," he said. "They scream, blaspheme with the worst filth — you continue; whispering the Rosary. And do not be afraid."

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