After a year of close cooperation between Poland and USA Ukrainian Crisis The Warsaw Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited the American Ambassador to Poland to discuss an urgent issue: the screening of a television documentary about Pope John Paul II of Polish origin. Documentary about his oligarchy Pontifex around scandals of child sexual abuse by priests in Poland in the 1960s and 70s, broadcast on an American-owned Polish television network. The screening of the film provoked a strong reaction, which gave the ruling Law and Justice Party the opportunity to use this reaction for political purposes.

face me Parliamentary elections In the fall, the party hastened to criticize the documentary, securing its image as a defender of the venerable – now – Pope John Paul. It’s been rage for weeks now devout Catholics Polonia was broadcast and reinforced by pro-government media, and last Palm Sunday, conservative politicians and thousands of people demonstrated in Warsaw. State media called the documentary “an atheistic attack on the most important Pole in history.”

Benefits of Anger

The outrage greatly improved the ruling party’s electoral prospects. “He shifted his focus from financial issues to the values ​​that John Paul represents. Unlike a fragmented opposition, the Law and Justice party knows how to rally its voters,” says political science professor Ewa Marchiniak from the University of Warsaw. State television responded to the documentary by broadcasting excerpts from John Paul’s sermons and speeches every night, and by projecting a giant photograph of the Pope on the façade of the presidential palace in Warsaw. Parliament, for its part, passed a resolution condemning the “shameful media campaign against Saint John Paul.”

The scandalous documentary allowed the president of the ruling party, Yaroslav Kachinsky, trigger a new “episode” in the ideological war. Speaking in Parliament, Kaczynski called the critical film project “a despicable attempt at manipulation” and “an unprecedented campaign of insinuation and slander” by the Left aimed at “destroying traditional values ​​and building a brave new world on their ruins.”

Demonstration in Warsaw.

The Palm Sunday demonstration was organized by an anti-abortion organization and ended with a Divine Liturgy in Warsaw’s Old Town. Although the demonstration was not of a partisan nature, it contained strong doses of Polish nationalism, with the slogan “God, honor, country” on many posters. Retired businessman Jerzy Kampinski, who traveled from eastern Poland for the demonstration, said Pope John Paul was “the guide of our lives” and deserves respect for his role in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.