At the Wednesday general audience on 4 November, Leo XIV urged Poles to recognise that „peace is built on justice, respect for the law and dialogue, not on violence”. The pope referred to the 70th anniversary of the release of Cardinals Stefan Wyszyński and József Mindszenty from prison.
Full text of the greeting
According to Vatican News, which published the full greeting, the pope addressed Polish pilgrims briefly at the end of the audience. A recording of the address is available on the Vatican News channel.
„I warmly greet the Poles! Seventy years ago, the heroic Primates of Poland and Hungary, Cardinals Stefan Wyszyński and József Mindszenty, were released from prison. Recalling the words that Pope Pius XII wrote on that occasion in the encyclical Laetamur admodum, I call on you to recognise that peace is built on justice, respect for the law and dialogue, not on violence. I bless you all!”
— Leo XIV during the general audience, 4 November, via Vatican News
Two primates and Pius XII’s encyclical
Wyszyński and Mindszenty were symbols of the Church’s resistance to communist repression in Poland and Hungary. The pope invoked Pius XII’s encyclical „Laetamur admodum”, from which he drew the idea of the conditions for peace. The quote on law and dialogue therefore comes from a reference to a mid-20th-century document, not from a separate comment on current events.
The pope did not mention any specific matter in Poland in his address, including the Constitutional Tribunal. Such a link has appeared in media commentary, including in „Rzeczpospolita” and on Polsat News, which note that Poland has recently been in the headlines due to the dispute over the Tribunal.
Who attended the audience
Among those who came from Poland and the Polish diaspora were pilgrims from St. Gertrude’s parish in Franklin Park in the Archdiocese of Chicago and from St. Michael the Archangel parish in Warsaw. There were also members of the Association for Persons with Disabilities and Their Families in Chełm Śląski, participants of the St. Bogumił March from Uniejów (Diocese of Włocławek), and members of the Kraków Crossbowmen’s Brotherhood, who came to venerate the relics of St. John Paul II.
The main theme of the catechesis was the engagement of Christians in economic and political life for the sake of peace. The pope continues a series devoted to the pastoral constitution „Gaudium et spes” of 1965, as reported by Vatican News.
Background: dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal
Since Friday, 30 October, Poland has been embroiled in a conflict over the leadership of the Constitutional Tribunal (TK). Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska announced that she had taken over the duties of the president and suspended the activities of Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy. Święczkowski calls this a „coup d’état” and does not recognise her as a judge of the Tribunal. Demonstrations were held in front of the building, and President Karol Nawrocki cut short his trip to Senegal and went to the TK. The dispute remains unresolved.
What it means
For readers in Poland, this is first and foremost another greeting from the pope to his compatriots: Leo XIV addresses Poles at general audiences every week, as we also reported in connection with the pope’s return to the audience after surgery. This time the emphasis fell on law and dialogue, but the Vatican did not connect these words to any Polish institution or dispute.
