Poland – A reenactment of the Battle of Vienna in 2016 World Youth Day in Krakow? By Olivier Bault.
During the World Youth Days (WYD) to be held with Pope Francis in Krakow from July 27 to 31, the Polish Ministry of Defense plans several events to present to pilgrims and other visitors “the Polish army in the light of generations in the service of the defense of Christian values”. Among these events revealed by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper on June 11, a reenactment of the Battle of Vienna which makes scream the Polish secular left who would like to see in Christianity only a bunch of NGO communities systematically turning the other cheek after each slap and meanwhile taking in every foreign incomer without asking too many questions about their intentions or the consequences for the local and national community. But the Battle of Vienna is the symbol of a Christianity opposed to this vision, with believers who had with them the force that gives the Holy Spirit. This gift of force is called in the language of Sienkiewicz męstwo, which is usually translated by “courage”, “bravery” or even “manhood” in different contexts.
This battle of the September 12, 1683, in defense of the Austrian capital was the start of the reflux the Ottoman caliphate that threatened to spread from the Balkans to the rest of Europe. It was in September 1683 that the troops of the Holy Roman Empire allied to those of the Republic of Two Nations (union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) and under command of Polish King John III Sobieski, put in flight the Turks, more numerous. “Venimus, vidimus, vicit Deus” (we came, we saw, God won) then wrote the Polish king in a letter to Pope Innocent XI to inform the military victory of Christianity over Islam.
The idea of the defense minister Antoni Macierewicz for the 2016 World Youth Day is not preposterous, and even courageous in the current context in Europe. We do not yet know what thinks Pope Francis about it.
Translated from French by the Visegrád Post.
