August Cardinal Hlond
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Image:August Hlond portr.jpg August Cardinal Hlond (1881-1948) Archbishop of Gniezno and Poznań in 1926 and primate (highest ranking church official) in Poland, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw in 1946.
When the Polish leader Józef Piłsudski died in 1935, Poland became highly nationalistic. The Great Depression of the 1930s pushed many Poles into dire poverty. This led to tensions in Polish society and extermism flourished.
Some people believed that if peasants were able to start small businesses, they would escape this poverty. In the meantime a large proportion (estimated at more than 90%) of shop keepers in Poland were Jewish. In 1935 Hlond called for a boycott of Jewish businesses with the words: "It is a fact that the Jews fight against the Catholic church, they are free-thinkers, and constitute the vanguard of atheism, bolshevism and revolution ... It is also true that in the schools the Jewish youth is having an evil influence, from an ethical and religious point of view, on the Catholic youth ... One does well to avoid Jewish shops and Jewish stalls in the markets, but it is not permitted to demolish Jewish businesses. One should protect oneself against the influence of Jewish morals...but it is inadmissible to assault, hit or injure Jews."
In 1939 Hlond spent several months in Rome for the conclave of 1939. In January 1940, Vatican Radio broadcast Hlond's reports of Nazi persecution of Jews and the Catholic clergy in Poland. These reports were included in the report of the Polish government to the Nuremberg Trials after the war.
Cardinal August Hlond reported in August 1941 to the secretary of state that the Polish people believed Pope Pius XII had abandoned them. This was said in light of the Nazi persecution of the Polish church and clergy.
He lived in southern France from 1940 to 1944 during most of WW II. He was arrested by the Gestapo on February 3, 1944, but was freed by the Allies on April 1, 1945. He returned to Poznań on July 20, 1945. He was transferred to Warsaw and named primate of Poland on June 13, 1946. He strongly opposed the communist regime there.
Hlond has been accused of overstepping his authority by forcing German officeholders to resign their church posts in 1945 in favor of Poles. Maximilian Kaller is one of the priests who were removed from their dioceses at this time.
Beatification and Controversy
Professor Franz Scholz, a German theologian, as well as many others have recorded their opposition to the proposed beatification of Cardinal Hlond. Jewish groups, for example, recall that not long after his 1935 exhortation to boycott Jewish shopkeepers, in 1936, Cardinal Hlond wrote a letter detrimental to Jewish people living in Poland. Some historians claim that thanks to Hlond, the Catholic church give religious legitimacy to extremist Anti-Jewish groups in the country. Jewish citizens were directly harmed by Cardinal Hlond's letter, they say.
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