“Be not afraid.”
It was June 1979. Pope John Paul II, elected only a year before, was speaking to the people of Poland on one of his first trips as pope.
The people were elated to receive him. The Communist government was not.
John Paul II in Poland, June 1979 (Barbara Bartkowiak/WikiCommons)
The Communists hated God and everything to do with Him. Their atheistic philosophy saw God—a Supreme Being Whose law far transcends any human law—as their mortal enemy. When the people believed in God, they believed in a higher authority than the State, and that was dangerous to the Communist regime.
But there was nothing the Communists could do to stop Christ’s Vicar.
“We want God! We want God!” shouted the people.
The authorities could not silence this man. They could not kill him. They could not make the Polish people ignore his message. He had a power they could not understand or control; a power that entered the hearts of his fellow Poles and didn’t go away.
John Paul II would make other trips to Poland in following years. The trips not only gave hope to the Polish people—they also helped bolster the nascent Solidarity movement, which would play a pivotal role in breaking the power of Communism and bringing freedom to Poland.
Ten years later, Soviet rule would come to an end in that country, and other Soviet holdings soon followed. The Berlin Wall, the symbol of the Iron Curtain, fell in 1989.
Unfortunately, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Those who promote socialist and communist ideas in our modern world often find eager audiences in those who haven’t been taught what Marxism and Communism actually did to the world in the 20th century.
Don’t be deceived. Educate yourself with The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration—an eye-opening look at Communism’s disturbed originator, the atheistic wickedness of Communism, and the dangers it continues to pose to us today. Pick up your copy right here at The Catholic Company!
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