The Catholic Church in Poland has responded firmly and unequivocally to the words of MEP Grzegorz Braun, who questioned the existence of gas chambers at the German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Church leaders recalled the Church’s teaching on the sin of antisemitism and the obligation to defend historical truth.
The Bishops’ Conference Statement
Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś, Chair of the Committee for Dialogue with Judaism of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, issued a brief statement, reminding the faithful of fundamental moral principles drawn from the Church’s teaching. “Antisemitism, in any form, is — according to the teaching of the Church — a sin and a moral evil,” stressed the Metropolitan of Łódź.
Cardinal Ryś added that Holocaust denial is “a lie, and it places a person on the side of the perpetrators, not the victims.”
Words of Condemnation
Archbishop Józef Kupny, Metropolitan of Wrocław and Vice President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, addressed Grzegorz Braun’s remarks directly. “This is unacceptable — the purest lie,” said the Archbishop in a statement for the Catholic Information Agency. “The words of a Polish politician are not only unacceptable. They are the purest lie — a lie unworthy of anyone, and especially one that should never be heard in the public sphere from the mouth of a politician representing our country on the international stage,” he emphasized. The Archbishop called on the MEP to withdraw his “indecent and painful statements.”
Archbishop Adrian Galbas, Metropolitan of Warsaw, wrote on social media that Grzegorz Braun’s words “are evil and give rise to evil.” “We must not remain silent in the face of such words, nor can we treat them lightly,” he stressed.
The Legacy of St. John Paul II
Archbishop Józef Kupny also recalled the words of St. John Paul II about the suffering of the Jewish people, spoken during a Mass celebrated in 1979 at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Father Professor Mirosław Kalinowski, Rector of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, also invoked the stance of the Polish Pope toward the Jewish people. “St. John Paul II — among other things — was the first pope to enter a synagogue and pray in Jerusalem,” wrote the rector. He reminded that in 2022, the university established the Abraham J. Heschel Center for Catholic-Jewish Relations, dedicated to fostering Catholic-Jewish relations through academic work, education, and culture on the international stage.
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