RELIGION: Polish Catholics and Abortion.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

To: Polish American Journal
Re: “Polish Americans to President: Veto health Care if it Finances Abortion”, January 2010

I was disappointed but not surprised to read “Polish Americans to President: veto health Care if it Finances Abortion”, January 2010.

My mother, who is in her late eighties, very Polish and very Catholic, told me that the question of abortion is such a personal issue that no one, not even the Pope, Polish or otherwise, can dictate what a person should or should not do. I told her that she is not following the dictates of her religion. She smiled and said that the boys in Rome don’t always know about the realities of life and that is why many Catholics, especially in the United States, choose to disagree with Rome on a number of issues. She added that everyone is entitled to their beliefs but if their beliefs infringe on the freedom of other people to choose how to manage their lives, then they are plainly wrong. She called the abortion fanatics “ciemnota”.

The Polish word is interesting and hard to accurately translate but it describes people that allow religious superstitions to dictate how they think and behave, usually in a very conservative manner bordering on backward.

Yes, the Polish community is more than Polkas and pierogis but progressive it is not. Let us hope that eventually it can climb out of the darkness.

I get a paper called the Polish-American Journal which is published on a monthly basis and which reports all things Polish from mainly the U.S. but also reports on international events concerning Poland. I usually just peruse it and toss it but a headline caught my eye the other day. It was about Polish organizations sending President Obama a letter urging him to veto the healthcare bill if it contains provisions where taxpayer money is used for abortions.

I have for years put up with the accepted notion that all people of Polish descent are Catholic; not only Roman Catholic but Polish Catholic which means blind obedience to anything and everything the Church teaches. I thought it was time for the readers of the venerable Polish American Journal learned that not all Poles toe the Catholic line as not all Catholics toe the Vatican line.

As you can see, I used my elderly mother to show that even old; Catholic Polish Babcias don’t buy into everything the Church teaches especially something as personal as abortion and I was not making this up – she really feels that way and always has.

I may have gone too far by using the word CIEMNOTA which basically means “people in darkness” or “people of darkness” and I included basically all Poles that are anti-choice – my bad!

There are many older Poles that are super Catholics that behave a lot like sheep but I do not know if there exist other Poles, old and young (like my mother and myself) that differ with the Vatican on this issue (as do many American Catholics). I guess I am saying that I should not have generalized.

It will be interesting to see what kind of response (if any) my letter garners. I expect the use of the word CIEMNOTA may have poked a few people in the eye since they most probably consider themselves intelligent and progressive and some may even have PhDs behind their names but at my age in life, after all I have seen and learned, if you are capable of denying me a choice on the abortion issue than you are a true CIEMNOTA.