The Polish Church has held a nationwide collection for migrants and refugees stranded on the country’s eastern border, as its bishops accused the Belarus regime of “exploiting human tragedies” and joined in calls for a humanitarian solution.
“We firmly condemn the exploitation of human dramas for actions against the sovereignty of Poland,” the Bishops’ Conference said. “We ask our rulers to defend the security of our borders, families and homes effectively, while also taking trouble to recognise strangers in real need and provide them with necessary support in the Gospel spirit. We also earnestly request access to those in need, both now and after the state of emergency ends.”
The communique was published at the close of the conference's plenary session at the Jasna Gora national sanctuary, as the Church’s Caritas organisation said Sunday collections across Poland’s 20,000 Catholic parishes would be used to fund assistance for the migrants in border areas and the long-term integration of those wishing to stay in Poland.
The bishops said they were also grateful to Polish troops and police who were “devoutly fulfilling their obligations” by securing the borders, as well as to inhabitants of border towns and parishes who had helped with medical and humanitarian aid.
However, the spokesman for Poland’s foreign ministry, Lukasz Jasina, warned the Church’s Catholic Information Agency, KAI, that Belarus's discredited president, Alexander Lukashenko, whose rigged August 2020 re-election is not recognised by Western governments, appeared to be “becoming irrational” in “persecuting his own population” adding that his “satanic plan” to use the migrants to pressure the European Union had not been foreseen.
At least ten migrants and refugees were reported to have died of hypothermia in the wooded eastern border zone by Monday, as Belarus officials encouraged around 7,000 homeless and hungry people of all ages, mostly from the Middle East, to force their way into Poland.
Appeals for a humanitarian solution to the crisis have come from Church leaders across Europe, including Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, who said at the weekend he also understood the EU could not “give in to the disgusting power game” played by the Lukashenko regime, in luring migrants “with empty promises”.
In Belarus, where a Catholic Church collection was also held on 14 November, several Church leaders have urged prayers for the migrants, including the former Archbishop of Minsk-Mogilev, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, who resigned last January.
However, in a mid-November statement with Belarus's Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish leaders, Kondrusiewicz’s successor, Archbishop Iosif Staneuski, backed the regime’s position and called on the EU to show “wisdom, mercy and compassion” by helping the migrants “realise their aspirations”.
“The tragic events related to the migrant crisis, currently unfolding on the peace-loving and long-suffering Belarusian land, the human grief and the pain of thousands of people freezing on the border of our states, prompted us to turn to you,” Archbishop Staneuski said in the appeal, drafted at a meeting with government officials. “As leaders of the major confessions of the Republic of Belarus, we appeal to the politicians of the economically developed and prosperous European states. It is not the fault of these people that they have left their native lands fleeing the hostilities in search of a better fate for themselves and their children. These people are seeking the way to their better future in Europe through Belarus.”
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