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    Today we bring you the 56th person selected out of the TOP 100 CATHOLICS OF THE CENTURY. The voters chose Lech Walesa, the Polish leader of Solidarnosc or Solidarity who credits the liberation of Poland from the communist hammer and sickle to Pope John Paul II. He served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995 but lost in his bid for re-election when he would not compromise his Catholic ideals and the Church's stance on abortion. At only 56, we have a feeling he will resurface in the next millennium and save Poland from its folly of leaning toward the culture of death. For more on the 56th selection, click on LECH WALESA

56.    Lech Walesa

    The voters chose as the 56th selection Lech Walesa, the former President of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who never compromised his faith in leading Poland away from communism. Like yesterday's selection Cardinal Josef Mindzenty, Walesa fought the hammer and sickle and credits fellow Pole Pope John Paul II with being the moving force in throwing off the yoke of communism, affirming that "The election of John Paul II as Pope was a gift from Heaven. Without the Holy Father, Solidarity could never have been formed, and we never would have succeeded."

    Walesa, now 56, was born in the small village of Lipna or Popowo near Wloclawek in eastern Poland on the Feast of the Archangels Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael - September 29, 1943 during World War II when Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany. He would fall back on the help of the strong archangels throughout his fight against communism. He grew up on a small, poor farm and his family struggled for every cent they could, especially after his father, a carpenter, had been sent to a Nazi concentration camp. After the war his father was released in 1945 but the grueling torture and isolation of the death camp took its toll and he died shortly after returning to his wife and children, just a skeleton of the once burly, muscular man he was. The family was devastated and only their Catholic Faith pulled them through. From this point on young Lech realized he was destined to fight injustice.

    He left the farm to attend trade school training as a mechanic and electrician and, after graduation in 1960, was employed as a mechanic for Svoboda Farm Machinery Equipment. In 1961 at the age of 18 he enlisted in the Polish armed forces, serving loyally for six years until completing his mandatory term of service in 1967. He went to work as an electrician in Gdansk at the Lenin shipyard where he saw first-hand the food riots there in 1970 and the killing of numerous anti-communist demonstrators by Soviet police. Yet, undismayed he became part of the committee at the shipyard, the same committee that organized the strike. Once again they struck against the unfair increase in food prices and commodities and this time Walesa was arrested and fired from his job. He was finished with employment at the shipyard but not with the atrocities going on there. Even though he was able to find work elsewhere, he never forgot the Lenin shipyards. Because of his outspokenness against unfair treatment by the Soviets he was fired at numerous other jobs as he recruited others to return to the shipyards and make a stand.

    On August 14, 1980 he led a group to the fence guarding the Lenin shipyards and fearlessly climbed to the top, protesting and leaped into the yard to join the workers. His heroic action moved others to join him and soon the crowd grew to epic proportions. The workers, impressed by his daring-do, elected him the leader to negotiate with management for better wages and conditions. Other enterprises in Gdansk, seeing the charismatic appeal of Walesa and the following he was attracting asked him to continue the cause of striking for the purposes of solidarity. Thus Solidarity was born. He took charge, organizing an Interfactory Strike Committee combined of workers from Gdansk as well as Sopot and Gdynia and, with this clout, the workers began demanding political changes. Primary in this was the right to strike and form free trade unions. The communist government of Poland were set to suppress Walesa and the workers but the support behind him scared them for they feared a national revolt. Therefore to avoid anarchy they yielded to Walesa's demands on August 31, 1980 when Lech and Poland's first deputy premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski signed an agreement in which the Polish people gained the right to organize freely and independently of any interference.

    From here things steamrolled as all of Poland - some ten million workers and farmers joined unions to assure their rights and protection and a national movement was underway. The national federation of these unions was called Solidarnosc or Solidarity. Walesa was the leading spokesman and chairman. Pope John Paul II and Holy Mother Church supported Walesa and Poland in their new drive to obtain their God-given rights of freedom and human dignity. In October 1981 the Polish government had no choice but to recognize this powerful national movement. However, in one of communism's last ditch efforts on December 13th of that year martial law was imposed and Solidarity outlawed. Walesa and many of its leaders were arrested and imprisoned for a year.

    Word of Walesa's bravery and accounts of his championing the cause of the oppressed reached the rest of the world, meriting him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and this greatly embarrassed the Polish government who were trying to stifle the movement. Though Walesa had been released, he feared being exiled if he left Poland to accept the coveted prize. Instead his wife Danuta traveled to Oslo, Norway to receive the Peace Prize for her husband. Despite this honor Walesa was still harassed and Solidarity had to exist underground. When economic conditions in Poland began to collapse in the late eighties and labor unrest again resurfaced the government turned to the man they had persecuted to lead them out of their woes. Walesa saw it as an opportunity and began negotiating from strength, paving the way for free elections which materialized in Solidarity winning an overwhelming majority of seats in the Polish Parliament or Sejm - the "upper house" - in June 1989. The communists began to panic and tried to form a coalition with Walesa who saw their days were numbered and refused. His refusal to submit translated into Parliament conceding to Solidarity which became the official government. They tried to draft Walesa as premier but he felt unworthy. Instead he promoted fellow Solidarity colleague Tadeusz Mazowiecki as premier but when he faltered Walesa realized he had to take the reigns himself. After praying constantly for direction and making a novena, Lech announced his candidacy in 1990 and won in a landslide, becoming Poland's first President and dissolving the communist party.

    His greatest moments came when he met with the Holy Father and they both gave thanks for Heaven's intercession in helping their people. Under Walesa's guidance Poland's state-run economy gradually evolved into a free-market system. The Polish leader's savvy political skills helped him but as the nineties progressed satan raised his ugly head and Lech was not willing to compromise. As so often happens with groups intent on selfishness, a faction jealous of his success and power arose and Solidarity split into two rival groups - one fully behind Walesa, the other leaning more toward socialism. By his own admission his confrontational style and plain talk made enemies of some who sought to undermine him, but his refusal to go along with sentiments within Parliament to relax the abortion laws eroded his popularity and a campaign to have him ousted began and gained steam as opponents called him a stuffed Catholic living in the past. To his credit he would not compromise his faith or principals and was narrowly defeated by the head of the Democratic Left Alliance Aleksander Kwasniewski in 1995 to Poland's shame. The Holy Father was greatly saddened by Walesa's defeat and made no bones of chastising the people for opening the door to returning to the shackles of communism when they voted him out of office in 1995. On the Pope's most recent trip to his homeland earlier this year, the Pope made a point to meet with Walesa as well as the Parliament and re-emphasized the only way for Poland to survive is to uphold the Sanctity of Life against the culture of death. To that Lech Walesa heartily agrees in his struggle to uphold life and liberty in all its stages. We have a feeling as the millennium dawns, though he is not currently Poland's president, because of his age and resolve that we have not heard the last of this noble Pole who lives his faith without compromise.

    In his column today, Pat Ludwa laments the sad depths that society has fallen because mankind seeks its own selfish will rather than the Divine Will. The children the Father created reject God's Word and embrace the prince of darkness, reeling in the black hole of the culture of death while reaching for the false icons of lust and temporal pleasures that are fleeting and deadly. Pat sees the love which Christ taught being morphed into the monstrous creed of erotica and sin, plummeting man deeper into the abyss, and warns us all, exposing the hidden agendas of Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion groups as well as dissident groups within the Church who are not what they seem to be but rather wolves in sheep's clothing. For Pat's column Eros replaced Agape, click on VIEW FROM THE PEW

    Once, we cared for one another. Maybe not perfectly, but it was there. We tried to be there for each other, to help each other. Once, even poor Catholic neighborhoods were able to build beautiful churches and schools. They weren't cheated out of their money. Their church, their school, was a sign of pride, of community, of faith. Even nationally, the concept was one of 'You' or 'We'. When the Civil War began one of the Union's best regiments was the Irish Brigade. Irishman, who were called clannish, papists, poor, ignorant, etc. joined to fight for this country. Many blacks did the same, the 9th and 10th Cavalry, the 54th Massachusetts, and others. Were we perfect? Was racism and other prejudice still around? Sure it was, but within the prejudice, there were unseen signs of love and caring. The underground railroad and other things. This was agape at it's best. We read in history the many sacrifices others made for the benefit of others. Risking death, hunger, ridicule, etc. not for themselves, but for others.

    Today, that seems to be gone. Oh, we 'hear' about caring for others, 'celebrating diversity' etc., but the reality is that agape has been replaced……by eros.

    Love is a word tossed around fast and furious today. But what kind of love?

    Agape is often called Christian love. A totally selfless love, which seeks not one's own advantage but only to benefit or share with another. (ref. Agape; Modern Catholic Dictionary; Fr. Hardon)

    Agape is what we saw with the poor Catholic neighborhoods. Agape is what we saw when, though not necessarily liked, blacks and others were given shelter, hidden, etc. to safeguard them from hateful attack.

    But today, Eros holds sway. Though many of us think of Eros as only the sexually erotic, it goes beyond just that. It's a possessive, selfish love. One that seeks it's own benefit instead of others. It's acquisitive love on whatever plane of self satisfaction the person has. (Ibid) Yes, sex is part of that, as is the love of money, food, even learning and art. Among other things.

    On a recent "Today Show" a guest said how the pill liberated us from sexual convention. True, to a point, since there have always been methods of artificial birth control. But the pill was fast and easy. Now one could engage in sexual activity without caring for the person you were having sex with (and it didn't even need to be your spouse) since the consequences of that 'choice' were easily avoided.

    "Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men-especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point-have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anticonceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion" (Humanae Vitae, Grave Consequences of Methods of Artificial Birth Control; #17).

    Sex, as a blessed and wonderful gift of God to express our love for our spouses (giving oneself entirely to them) by which God brings new life into the world, has become debased. Sex as recreation. One fellow wrote me that sex is fun, ergo, it's ok, and not a sin. Even a modicum of reasoning could see that that logic would also mean that pedophilia is not a sin since its 'fun' for the pedophile and other 'fetishes' I don't care to get into. Things that even the most militant sexual libertine would say is wrong. But if its not wrong for them, why not for the others with 'diverse' tastes and orientations?

    But the error goes even deeper. Under the socially acceptable cover of 'choice' we see this Eros becoming the presiding love. The woman who 'chooses' to engage in sexual contact outside of marriage is liable to get pregnant, even with condoms, the pill, etc. (That's why abortion is a necessary part of artificial contraception) to 'save' her career, her lifestyle, her figure, whatever, she 'chooses' abortion. The child doesn't matter. If it impairs her wants and desires, it's a parasite to be eliminated. We won't mention that at least 50% of these aborted children must be females deprived of their 'right to choose'. Why would anyone feel it's ok for a child to pay for anothers mistake? What 'crime' has the unborn committed?

    Not only are bizarre reasons given to justify this (it cuts down on crime, helps the environment, etc.) we even see schools and the media contributing to the establishment of Eros as the primary love. Sex is healthy, sex is good. A colleague of Dr. Kinsey once wrote that 'sex before eight was too late.' Recently, the American Psychiatric Association said that children abused by homosexuals showed no psychiatric damage wahtsoever. (I wonder how it is that heterosexual abuse hurts them but homosexual abuse doesn't?) We see television showing all sorts of 'living arrangements' as acceptable. On Friends, just as an example, we saw one marriage destroyed when Ross' wife ran off with her lesbian lover (Isn't that funny!) Ross, since then, has slept with at least four other women, including Rachel, another star of the show. Monica has been with at least three. Recently, she's found 'love' with Chandler. In fact, most of the situation comedies revolve around the sexual practices of their stars. Goebels (Nazi Propaganda Minister) found that comedy was an effective means to 'teach' the new German mentality.

    In these shows, the only people who are celibate are that because 1) they're obnoxious, or 2) ignorant. In fact, go to a Planned Parenthood, or Sex Ed meeting and propose abstinance until marriage to curb sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy and you're likely to be laughed out of the meeting for if you disagree with the 'norm' of the times, chances are you will be isolated, ridiculed, etc. "It has been left to the very latest Modernists to proclaim an erotic religion which at once exalts lust and forbids fertility . . . The new priests abolish the fatherhood and keep the feast - to themselves." {The Well and the Shallows, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1935, p. 233}

    It's been shown that if a person engages in pre-marital sex , the odds are that they will continue to do so even after marriage. After all, it's just sex. (Or sex with their spouse is boring and they need 'spice'.)

    If one looks at even the issue of women priests, we'd see the real issue underlying their 'indignation'. (It has to be noted that even the WOC [Women's Ordination Committee] has said that their aim is not to have women priests. Rather, coupled with the argument is attached to langauge of 'women's issues'. These issues, in fact, is the issue of abortion and artificial contraception.

    But this 'worship of sex' goes beyond just the person's personal life. It has crept into our national, and international, policy. "Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies. Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem? Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious? In such a way men, wishing to avoid individual, family, or social difficulties encountered in the observance of the divine law, would reach the point of placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy." (Humanae Vitae, Grave Consequences of Methods of Artificial Birth Control; #17)

    Once, we were outraged by China's one child policy and the fact that some in India will kill a child if it's a girl. Yet, recently, we hear people in the US advocating the same policy since 'even the reduction of families to two children is causing an alarming increase in the world's population'. "The fact is, the world does not have an overpopulation problem. We do have problems of food distribution and massive political, economic, and social justice problems. We do have a problem with a lack of technological development in what are generally called the "developing" countries. But the world is not overpopulated! This "problem" is simply Planned Parenthood's way of pushing its eugenics agenda without having to use the term." (Deadly Deception; Human Life International; confirmed by the Population Research Institute)

    We can confirm this simply by reviewing the agenda of the Cairo Conference. Poverty in many Third World nations is not due to large families, but rather a lack of resources. Health care is almost non-existent. The wages received for their labor is often negligible, and often times, comes from US corporations with a profit margin much larger than their nations' Gross National Product.

    The Cairo Conference hoped to 'eradicate' poverty and over-population via 'family planning' and 'reproductive health programs'. "First is the area of poverty alleviation and eradication through suitable reproductive health programmes, including family planning and sexual health ... [and] in the area of research into linkages between population, migration and urban growth and their implication for human settlements." (Coordination and Cooperation Within the U.N. System in the Implementation of the Habitat Agenda; 15 January 1996)

    Doctors in Africa have closets and drawers full of condoms and birth control pills, but hardly ever any penicillin. Has anyone ever heard the UN, the US, or anyone else, propose raising their standard of living? Sending money to build business? Productive farms? No, because that would mean we may not be able to sustain what we have. Not to mention that their exports would then also cost more.

    All in all, the claims and rationalizations of groups like Planned Parenthood and others are, at best, misinformed, at worst, down right lies. The facts are that abortion has nothing to do with the drop in crimes reported. The facts are that they don't save money. The facts are that birth control doesn't reduce the need for abortions, in fact, it demands it. The facts are that it doesn't reduce teen pregnancy, nor does it 'liberate' the woman. In fact, it makes the woman even more of an object of sexual enjoyment than before.

    In fact, Planned Parenthood and pro-choice rhetoric has more in common with the eugenics policies of Nazi Germany than anyone realises.

"Today eugenics is suggested by the most diverse minds as the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.

"I think you must agree ... that the campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics ... Birth control propaganda is thus the entering wedge for the eugenic educator.

"As an advocate of birth control I wish ... to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation.

"On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective." (Margaret Sanger. "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda." Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.)

    Is it any wonder than many (Planned Parenthood among them) advocated forcing welfare mothers to either accept sterilization or birth control implants before receiving any assistance? "Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying ... demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism ... [Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant ... We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all." ( Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization, 1922. Chapter on "The Cruelty of Charity," pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library edition.)

    "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:40).

    However, if you happen to oppose the views of today's 'intellectual elite', chances are you will be ridiculed, ostracized, and maybe even imprisoned as a danger to society. "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in Heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets… 'Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets' " (Luke 6:22-23; 26).

    "I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor Me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them" (John 16:1-4).

    " Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased." {Orthodoxy, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1908, p. 145}

    Eros over Agape, anyone or anything which gets in the way of personal satisfaction, must be eliminated. Is it any wonder anti-Catholicism is on the rise? Even within the Church?

Pax Christi, Pat

   Dear children! Also today I call you to give glory to God the Creator in the colors of nature. He speaks to you also through the smallest flower about His beauty and the depth of love with which He has created you. Little children, may prayer flow from your hearts like fresh water from a spring. May the wheat fields speak to you about the mercy of God towards every creature. That is why, renew prayer of thanksgiving for everything He gives you. Thank you for having responded to my call. For more on Medjugorje, click on MEDJUGORJE AND MORE

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September 22, 1999 volume 10, no. 180   DAILY CATHOLIC