Word: priestly
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...John Paul II urged his countrymen not to disturb "the great moral eloquence of this death." Former Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa asked Poles to observe "the silence of mourning." Said he: "They wanted to kill, and they killed not only a man, not only a Pole, not only a priest. They wanted to kill the hope that it is possible in Poland to avoid violence in political life...
...church's request for a Warsaw funeral. In a further concession, the regime allowed a church-appointed doctor and lawyer to observe the autopsy. Government officials insisted that there would be no plea bargaining with the secret-police captain and two lieutenants who were arrested soon after the priest disappeared. They will be tried for kidnaping and murder, a charge that carries a possible death sentence. At week's end the official investigation had reached even higher into the Interior Ministry, which controls the secret police: two colonels were arrested and a general was suspended...
Despite the government's measures to defuse tension, there was widespread suspicion of high-level complicity in the tragedy. Even when Popieluszko was a young seminary student serving a mandatory term in the military, he had spent time in the stockade for conducting prayer services. The priest was so dedicated in carrying out his duties at his first Warsaw parish, the historic Church of St. Anne, that his superiors feared for his health and transferred him to what they thought would be a less demanding post. But as soon as Popieluszko arrived at the parish of St. Stanislaw Kostka...
Popieluszko's name figured prominently on a list of 69 priests that the regime accused of crossing the line from the church into politics. When police claimed to have discovered explosives and anti-Communist literature in Popieluszko's apartment, the priest declared that the officers knew exactly where to look because they had planted the evidence. The authorities did not press charges against Popieluszko but continued the campaign by other means. Under the pseudonym Jan Rem, Government Press Spokesman Jerzy Urban wrote a scathing article in the weekly Tu i Teraz calling Popieluszko a "modern-day Rasputin...
...abductors may have arrogantly assumed that the fragmented opposition would be too weak to forcefully respond to his death. Instead, the tragedy had provided the nation with a new symbol of courage. In their shock and grief, many Poles recalled some of the last words spoken by their martyred priest. "A Christian's duty is to stand by the truth, even if truth carries with it a high price," Popieluszko had told parishioners from the city of Bydgoszcz who had gathered to recite the rosary. "Please God, let us retain our dignity throughout each day of our lives...