Heroic Catholic statesman speaks at Saint John’s University

Special to the St. Cloud Visitor
Tony Capecchi

COLLEGEVILLE – Lech Walesa, the onetime shipyard worker who led Poland’s nonviolent revolution against communism and became its first president, spoke at St. John's University on Wednesday, Nov. 30. 

The Nobel Prize winner joined the St. John’s monastery for Mass and then ate dinner with students, faculty and guests before speaking in the Abbey Church in the evening.  Walesa, constantly mixing in his well-known humor, encouraged the eager crowd of more than 1,000 to not be discouraged by failure, but rather to take comfort in their faith and become leaders for moral good.

Walesa recounted the history of the Solidarity movement he led in 1980 which earned Poland its freedom and, against all odds, resulted in the collapse of the Soviet system.

“I never came across a single politician who would give us the slightest chance of bringing communism down and winning a victory against it,” he said.

Uprisings similar to the Solidarity movement in that part of the globe previously resulted in slaughter. But Walesa’s Catholic faith motivated and comforted him.

“I would have betrayed the cause at least 100 times if it were not for my faith,” he said.

Faith was a recurring theme for Walesa, who admitted to feeling unworthy of speaking in a church.

 “I came from a tiny village, raised in poverty, but I did have two things: belief in God and belief in what I was doing. If only I had your money, your wisdom… 20 Nobel Prizes at least,” Walesa said in a statement that characterized the two staples of his speech: an emphasis on faith and frequent humor.

At the beginning of his speech, Walesa warned the crowd that “perhaps you won’t quite find anything that I say useful. That means you will have wasted an hour of your life.”

At the end of his speech, before taking questions, Walesa asked the audience if they still wanted to listen to him anymore. 

When the audience responded favorably, Walesa continued, “OK. No one will be let out because I hate talking to empty seats. Those who fall asleep, please make sure you sit closer to the back because I don’t like snoring.”

He also talked seriously about his personal friendship with Pope John Paul II, a fellow Pole, and cited the importance of the late Pope’s visit to Poland in 1979.

Walesa had been engaged in social activism for years prior to the Pope’s visit but had only managed to round up 10 recruits, Walesa said. While the Pope never directly called for the overthrow of the Soviet-supported government, within one year of his visit to his native Poland, Walesa had 10 million recruits and realized “the whole nation is a nation of believers.”

Hearing about the special relationship between the two Polish leaders was fascinating to Gar Kellom, Vice-president of student development at St. John’s.

“I hope everyone saw more clearly what hope and light [Walesa] and his relationship with Pope John Paul II brought to the world,” Kellom said.

In conclusion, Walesa urged America as the world’s only superpower to develop its leadership for moral and political good.

“We can achieve anything provided that we see the right values of God,” Walesa said.

Walesa’s visit marked the first time ever that a head or former head of state has spoken at St. John’s.

“Historians are reluctant to acknowledge that the acts of individuals can change history,” St. John’s University president Br. Dietrich Reinhart said while introducing Walesa to the crowd. “Today we live in a world that is deeply in debt to the fact that our honored guest this evening, President Lech Walesa, made a personal decision to make a difference.”

The St. John’s Abbey church was filled to capacity with St. John’s University students and staff, as well as scores of Poles from across the Midwest. Several hundred had to be turned away due to fire code standards. 

“[Walesa] is perhaps the most outstanding Catholic statesman of our troubled modern era,” St. John’s University professor Nick Hayes said in his opening comments at the event.

That significance was appreciated by those in attendance at both the speech and the dinner, especially the young Poles who saw Walesa’s visit as an opportunity to meet their ultimate national hero.

Tom Polinceusz, a 26-year-old Polish immigrant residing in St. Cloud, was visibly honored to ask Walesa a question and meet him after his speech.

“He inspires me. He’s a simple person but he has a great faith,” Polinceusz said. “If it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t be here right now.”