Poland: Way of the Cross

At Jasna Gora monastery, the most sacred shrine in Poland, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski last week blasted grow ing Communist efforts to curtail church activities. Speaking to groups of the more than 100,000 pilgrims gathered to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption, the cardinal cited a government ban on organized pilgrimages and pro tested against roadblocks where some pilgrims had been harassed during the trip to the shrine, enduring their own “Way of the Cross.” Ostensibly, the ban resulted from a smallpox outbreak in the vicinity, but there was no inter ference with nonreligious tourists.

On another front, the Reds refused to let children at state-run summer camps attend Mass. Said Wyszynski: “The state does not have the right to prohibit everything. If a citizen does not demand his rights, he is no longer a citizen. He becomes a slave.”