Will Jews again seek jail for straight-talking priest?
by Jeff Hook
GDANSK, POLAND -- Father Henryk Jankowski presided over today's religious service opening the 25th anniversary of the anti-communist Solidarity union. Jews were enraged when he said: "We are filled with horror when laws are imposed upon us that are thought up by anti-Catholic Masons, Jewish bankers and hell-born atheistic socialists." He also said, "The recommendations of Washington economic gurus are threatening Poland's sovereignty."
Jankowski is very popular and known for preaching patriotic sermons against Jewish communist ideology to his Gdansk parish. Many dignitaries and businesspeople attend his masses, such as longtime associate and former President Lech Walesa, the feisty electrician from Gdansk who led the Poles out of communism as the leader of the Solidarity movement. (In 1990, Walesa declared himself "clean -- a 100% Pole with no Jewish blood," and was forced to make a public apology.)
"Apologizing to Jews is an insult to the Polish nation," said Jankowski in a 1997 sermon. He was referring to another apology -- by the prime minister to Jews for alleged "persecutions." Jankowski reminded the audience that Jews tortured and murdered Poles by the thousands after the Red Army invaded during WW2, and that the killings continued until 1956. Jankowski also warned that Jews are trying to take over the former German concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, evidenced by Jewish demands to remove all Christian religious symbols from the camp and surrounding areas.
"What the priest says is the real truth; this church is our Poland," said a woman after the mass. In her opinion, only Jankowski is fighting for a free Poland and declaring war on the communists. "We are ruled by Jews, so we have to fight them. And here is our weapon," she said, pointing to her rosary.
A retired worker from the Gdansk Shipyard, where Solidarity rose to prominence, attends church every Sunday. He told local media that without Jankowski, everybody would quickly forget "what communism does to people." [The Warsaw Voice, August 11, 1997]
In February of 1995, and twice in 1997, Jews arranged for Jankowski to be criminally charged for "anti-Semitic references" in his sermons. He stood accused of "belittling minorities on the basis of ethnicity, nationality or religion," and faced a penalty of up to three years in prison. So far, Polish courts have found his sermons to be within the limits of the law. It remains to be seen if new charges will be leveled.
"In my own country I feel persecuted by the Jewish minority," Jankowski once said, while leaving the prosecutor's office. He said that investigating a priest for the text of a sermon is a return to communist persecution of the clergy. "I have to work even more, and act without paying attention to the slanderous comments by the enemies of that which is Catholic and Polish," he said in a written statement for the press.
In October of 1997, Jankowski issued this warning from the pulpit: "Poles, bestir yourselves. We can no longer tolerate governments made up of people who have not declared whether they come from Moscow or from Israel." "I say out loud what the Polish nation thinks. I don't say it by mistake, but with full conviction." [The Warsaw Voice, October 5, 1997]
Polish Priest Slams Laws of Jewish Bankers
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