In 1949 the Englishman George Orwell wrote a book titled 1984. It was about life in a totalitarian state—one that held total control over peoples’ lives. Orwell invented terms used in the book that resonate today: Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak. Today the term Orwellian is used to describe official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past. One famous quote from 1984 is: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
In 1968 students in the city of Krakow, Poland, organized an unofficial lecture titled “Orwell’s 1984 and Poland today.” It was broken up by the police at the behest of Poland’s communist government. A few days later, there was a meeting in a Catholic church titled “Orwell’s 1984 and Poland today.” It was not broken up. The Archbishop of Krakow had ordered Orwell’s 1984 to be read in all churches. That Archbishop’s name was Karol Wojtyla, now known as Pope Saint John Paul II.
In 1953 the Christ-hating communist Polish government implemented a law by which it, and not the Church, would appoint and remove pastors and bishops. The Church would become a de facto subsidiary of the Polish communist state. In answer to the idea of having atheists appoint and remove Catholic clergy, the primate, the head bishop of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski stated:
We teach that it is proper to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. But when Caesar sits himself on the altar, we respond curtly: he may not. (George Wiegel, The End and the Beginning, 40)
So, Cardinal Wyszynski was charged with treason and went to prison. By the end of 1953, eight Polish bishops and 900 priests joined him. Over the next two years 2000 priests were imprisoned. By 1954 one out of three Polish persons were on the “register of suspicious and criminal elements” (Weigel, 36). Each Polish parish had a communist informer. Fr. Wojtyla’s residence was completely bugged, and his closest friends were spied on to discredit him.
In 1958 Karol (that’s Carl or Charles in Polish) Wojtyla became Poland’s youngest bishop at age 38. In 1964 he was made Archbishop of Krakow. During these years, Wojtyla was bravely at odds with communist ideology. He taught that the demand for religious freedom be respected and that parents should have complete liberty to raise their children in the truths of the Faith. Spying on Wojtyla then intensified. By 1967 there were 270 active priests and lay communist informants in his diocese.
Wojtyla was never a firebrand but a calm-thinking intellectual and philosopher. His atheistic opponents saw that as weakness. But then, in 1978, the unthinkable happened: The “weak” Wojtyla was elected pope. The next year, 1979, he went home to Poland. The mortified communists sent a secret directive to the government schoolteachers, explaining how they should understand and explain the pope’s visit:
The pope is our enemy . . . Due to his uncommon skills and great sense of humor he is dangerous, because he charms everyone, especially journalists . . . he shakes all hands, kisses children . . . It is modeled on American presidential campaigns . . . Because of the activation of the Church in Poland our activities designed to atheize the youth not only cannot diminish but must intensely develop . . . In this respect, all means are allowed and we cannot afford any sentiments. (George Weigel, Witness to Hope)
The communist propaganda, however, was useless. Eleven million people, one out of three Polish persons, saw the pope during a visit that was both political and religious dynamite.
Thousands of newly encouraged Poles stood in the streets, chanting “We want God! We want God!” as Wojtyla showed himself the true master of Polish hearts and minds. He did so by restoring authentic history and culture to a people who had been oppressed for forty years. By giving Poland back to the Poles, he created new tools of resistance that communism simply could not match (End and the Beginning, 111).
So, the communists had Wojtyla shot. Miraculously, he survived the attempted murder and remained pope for another twenty-four years, dying on April 2, 2005, the vigil of his newly created feast, Divine Mercy Sunday.
As pope, Wojtyla seemed to always have a little smile on his face. It exuded a “be not afraid” attitude that gave the impression he knew something his unbelieving enemies did not.
Wojtyla did know something. And it was his mission to share it with his beleaguered countrymen and the rest of the world. He wanted to share the message his fellow Pole, the nun St. Faustina Kowalska was given by Christ in the 1930’s, shortly before Poland received a real taste of hell during World War II, when around twenty percent of Poland’s population perished.
Speaking of hell, St. Faustina recorded how Christ had His angel escort her to hell. She wrote:
I, Sister Faustina Kowalska, by the order of God, have visited the Abysses of Hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence . . . the devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God. What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: That most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell. (Diary, par. 741)
Last year in Rome, in May of 2024, at an event called Vatican World Children Day, an Italian comedian scandalized thousands of children when he told them there was no purgatory or hell. He told them they’d all go to heaven. Pope Francis was sitting nearby, presumably smiling. He did not correct the heretical comments nor later make a statement of clarification. He failed to mention that, according to Christ, the scandalizing of children gets rewarded with millstones around necks and subsequent drownings. That means there is a hell, and people go there. Unless we choose to make Christ out to be a liar. Who would be so foolish to do that?
We are living today in quite the Orwellian world, are we not? A doublethink world where children are taught in schools designed to atheize them that boys can be girls and girls can be boys. We are living in a time when people are being arrested for silently praying outside abortion mills—arrested for “thought crimes.” And people are being fired from jobs for addressing coworkers with pronouns that align with biological reality.
Where does this end? Do we all end up on the “register of suspicious and criminal elements” for refusing to play along with the big lie and preaching Christ crucified? What about you? Are you ready to be punished for warning the Caesars of this world, who sit themselves up on Christ’s altar, that they may not?
In the silence, picture Christ looking at you with a small, confident smile on His face. Hear Him say:
I know something, and I want to share it with you. It’s this: I am the Lord of history. It is I who ultimately controls the past, present, and future. So be not afraid; I’ve conquered the world. And you can conquer it with me. Trust in my mercy, and I will create in you tools of resistance that hell simply cannot match.
Photo from Polish History
