WARSAW, Poland (CNS): Poland’s Catholic prim-ate has urged fellow citizens to see the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others in an April 10 air disaster as a “dramatic challenge” to build “a fuller community” at the national level and with neighbouring states.
“We are all asking ourselves the same painful question – how was this possible?” Archbishop Henryk Muszynski of Gniezno said at an April 11 Mass in his archdiocese.
“Why has a new drama been added to the greatest drama of the last war in the innocent deaths of our nation’s political and religious elites?” he asked.
“We can expect the causes of this tragic accident to be explained directly in the future. But the wider question will no doubt stay unanswered, along with the pain and sadness not just of close families but also of all Poles.”
The plane carrying Mr Kaczynski, top government and military officials and religious leaders crashed in heavy fog on April 10 while attempting to land at the Russian airport of Smolensk.
The plane was carrying a delegation that was to attend a ceremony commemorating the Katyn Forest massacre, a Soviet massacre of more than 20,000 members of Poland’s elite officer corps 70 years ago.
The other passengers included the first lady, the head of the Polish central bank, the deputy foreign minister, heads of the Polish navy and air forces, the army chief of staff and nine clergy, including the Catholic archbishop who heads the country’s military archdiocese.
Archbishop Muszynski said the president had given an “eloquent testimony of endeavour and care throughout his life for faithfulness to Christ and history”.
“He knew the one whom he trusted and the one who was his hope was greater than the lure of despair and death,” Archbishop Muszynski said.
“He certainly thought about his worldly political plans. But he was also aware that he was not master of life and death, and that someone else was directing the fate of peoples and nations.
“Everything great and lasting in life is built with effort, labour and sacrifice. This tragic accident at Smolensk is a dramatic summons to all of us to help build a fuller community both at a national level and with our immediate neighbours, so that the sacrifice of those who have died will not be in vain,” the archbishop said.
Archbishop Tadeusz Ploski, Poland’s military archbishop who held the rank of division general, was among nine clergy victims.
Others included Orthodox Archbishop Miron Chodakowski, who headed the Polish Orth-odox military chaplaincy, as well as the rector of Warsaw’s Cardinal Wyszynski University Fr Ryszard Rumianek.
The president’s chaplain Monsignor Roman Indrzejczyk and the chaplain of Poland’s Katyn Families Association Monsignor Zdzislaw Krol also were killed.
In an April 10 message, Pope Benedict XVI told Poland’s acting head of state, parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski, that he had received the news with “deep pain”.
“I entrust all the victims of this dramatic accident – parliamentarians, politicians, military representatives and families of Katyn, as well as all the others – to the goodness of the merciful God. May he welcome them into his glory,” he said in the telegram.
Memorial Masses for the disaster victims were held nationwide and among Polish communities abroad, as well as at Katyn Forest and in Russia and neighbouring countries.
