{"id":5323,"date":"2021-11-15T08:02:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T08:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=5323"},"modified":"2025-06-11T08:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T07:18:11","slug":"grzegorz-kucharczyk-a-crisis-of-faith-inevitably-entails-a-crisis-of-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2021\/11\/15\/grzegorz-kucharczyk-a-crisis-of-faith-inevitably-entails-a-crisis-of-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Grzegorz Kucharczyk: \u201cA crisis of faith inevitably entails a crisis of reason\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grzegorz Kucharczyk is a Polish historian and Humanities professor who specialises in 19th- and 20th-century political thinking as well as German history. One of his latest offerings is a book entitled\u00a0Christophobia: 500 Years of Hate towards Jesus and the Church<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(Chrystofobia: 500 lat nienawi\u015bci do Jezusa i Ko\u015bcio\u0142a).<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen interviewed him by phone on November 2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>Why did you choose this title for your book? Why did you not use the term \u201cChristianophobia\u201d, for example?<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0Because Christianophobia is a manifestation of a deeper process which is called Christophobia. It can be observed as manifestations of hostility towards Christians or Christianity, which we call Christianophobia. It is in fact really about hostility towards the very founder of the Church and its head, i.e. Jesus Christ, and this is the reality that we saw last year on the streets of our cities, for example. The \u201cred lightning\u201d protests [pro-abortion protests in Poland in the autumn of 2020]\u00a0were full of hostility towards Jesus Christ. Blasphemous slogans were written on the facades of churches, and masses were even interrupted. It was really about expressing a particular hatred towards Jesus, and it has been so through the ages. What we call the persecution of Christians and the Church is only the aftermath of the original persecution, or hatred of Jesus.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>The book we are talking about was published before these events. Were you surprised that such things were taking place in the Catholic Poland of Saint John Paul II, or did you have a feeling that it was coming?<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0It didn\u2019t surprise me, but it is very concerning.<\/p>\n

History has shown more than once that countries which were considered \u201ctraditionally Catholic\u201d then saw accelerated Christophobic revolutions.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is enough to mention, for example, Portugal in the early twentieth century, France in the eighteenth, or Mexico in the first half of the twentieth. Historical reality confirms that nothing can be taken for granted once and for all.<\/p>\n

These demonstrations last autumn revealed certain currents that had been building since much earlier, and they exploded all at once. It may be painful for many people, but they will have to recognise that the situation is not so rosy as it may seem. We can no longer be reassured that this does not concern us and that Christophobic manifestations only happen in the West, not in our country. It turns out that this may have been the last call for many people to acknowledge that the situation is serious.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>You begin your book with the Protestant Reformation. What was this Reformation all about? You draw the reader\u2019s attention to the fact that many places of worship were not only vandalised, but also subjected to all kinds of\u00a0blasphemous acts and profanations. How did the societies of those countries that were affected by this revolution react?<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0Contrary to what the propaganda says in circles which view the Reformation solely as historical progress, the Reformation did not come from below. It was not that people demanded a pure Gospel and the abolition of the Holy Mass, Latin, the worship of saints, the destruction of sacred art, and so on. The \u00ab\u00a0common people\u00a0\u00bb never asked for anything like that.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, the Protestant Reformation was a revolutionary project that was born in the hearts and minds of some of the Catholic Church\u2019s clergymen. Martin Luther was a priest before he became a \u201creformer\u201d. It was all about a comprehensive revolutionary program. This revolution was the rejection of the Church as such.<\/p>\n

It was not about the promiscuity of one pope or another, because it was commonly said in the Church that the situation in the Roman curia was scandalous.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was all about the rejection of the Church as an institution that is called and created by God Himself with the mission of leading people to salvation. This was rejected by Martin Luther and others, with all the consequences that followed.<\/p>\n

One of them was the cultural vandalism you mentioned: destroying monuments of sacred art or acts of desecrating the Blessed Sacrament. This was especially the case in the regions where the Calvinist faction was gaining strength. There, the destructive activity was particularly violent, such as in the Netherlands, Germany, and England. People protested against it. A whole series of peasant uprisings in England and Sweden showed that the people did not want such revolutionary changes.<\/p>\n

The decisive factor here was the support of the state \u2013 that is, the individual rulers who were primarily materially interested in taking over the Church\u2019s property. The slogan of the \u201cpoor Church\u201d is usually based on the fact that specific people, i.e. the ruler and certain magnates or nobility, get rich from it. In this way, a community of interests was created which, possessing the instruments of power, turned out to be stronger than the popular uprisings that were against the Reformation.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>The crucial role of Freemasonry in what you like to call the Anti-French Revolution is a commonly known fact. You have mentioned many times during your lectures that the right question is not to ask who belonged to a lodge in France at the end of the eighteenth century, but rather who did not belong to one. Are the Masons therefore responsible for the fact that the French Revolution was characterised by the desire to parody the Catholic religion and its sacraments?<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0Various eighteenth-century organisations such as the Freemasons, but also the Rosicrucians and the Illuminati, rejected the Catholic faith and the institutional Church itself.<\/p>\n

They produced a sort of paraliturgy: i.e., their own cults and rites. Let us pay attention to the whole ritual by which new members are admitted to Freemasonry: all the garments, aprons, compasses, etc. It is all \u201cliturgy\u201d which bears some specific signs that it is parodying the Christian cult.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the time of the Revolution\u2019s victories, this tendency passed to a wider ground in the form of the so-called revolutionary holidays, which on the one hand were to be the expression of this new power and on the other were intended primarily to \u201ceducate\u201d the so-called ordinary French about the new order. Take, for example, the planting of small \u201ctrees of freedom\u201d, the cutting down of which was punishable by the death penalty.<\/p>\n

One can also mention the rejection of the Christian calendar by inter alia disposing of Sunday and the creation of a week of ten days. It was all aimed at a peculiar revolutionary pedagogy which in turn led to what the Israeli philosopher Jacob Talmon calls totalitarian democracy. Totalitarianism is based on state power\u2019s ambition to penetrate all spheres of human life, such as, for example, measuring time. Here, the French Revolution was a prototype, as was the case of the genocide in Vend\u00e9e. It was the first genocide in the modern history of Europe in which a popular uprising was drowned in blood by the armies of the Republic.<\/p>\n

Researchers of the French Revolution have long stated that the vast majority of the Republican terror\u2019s victims were representatives of the so-called Third Estate; that is, the layer of the unprivileged who were allegedly to be the Revolution\u2019s main beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>According to all the information provided by your book, it seems that wherever the Christophobic forces take power, atrocities often take place in the form of bestial murders, for example. You mention that it was during the French Revolution that the idea of using gas for \u201cmore effective\u201d mass killing was raised for the first time.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0One must follow the research and findings of an eminent French historian who studied the history of the Vend\u00e9e uprising as a fratricidal French genocide. I am talking about Reynald Secher, who wrote an excellent and well-documented sourcebook on this genocide. How could they kill the largest number of people in the shortest time? This topic was debated in the French parliament. Secher reminds us of these debates. At some point, the parliamentarians raised the idea that \u201cmaybe we could use gas\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were no repercussions for the genocide in Vend\u00e9e, and it was even regarded as a victory for the Republic. This encouraged more genocides. History shows it clearly. For example, Young Turk officers who were in Western Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century read about the history of the French Revolution, especially in relation to Vend\u00e9e. These officers took power as the Young Turkish party in their country. During the First World War, they organised the first genocide of the twentieth century: the extermination of the Armenians and other Christians in Turkey. In turn, while encouraging his generals to wage a total war against Poland before the aggression at the end of August 1939, Hitler asked rhetorically, \u201cWho remembers the massacre of the Armenians today?\u201d Unpunished genocide encourages more genocides. Secher calls the erasing of the memory of such events \u201cmemoricide\u201d \u2013 that is, memory killing.<\/p>\n

Another thing is the phenomenon that some call \u201cgenocidum atrox<\/em>\u201d, which means not only a genocide but a genocide committed with particular cruelty. This was especially true during the Spanish Revolution of 1936-1939. For example, in areas under Republican rule the graves of nuns and monks were desecrated en masse, with their bodies being disinterred and placed in front of churches. People were posing for pictures with the corpses. It was something to brag about.<\/p>\n

So here we are dealing with a combination of cruelty and contempt. This is a pattern described by Blessed Cardinal Wyszy\u0144ski, who explained that if someone fights against God, he will certainly raise his hand against the freedom of God\u2019s children as well; that is, people who believe in God. The successive waves of Christophobia confirm this pattern.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>In Belgium, where I come from, and in Western Europe more broadly, I have noticed a tendency to identify German National Socialism with the far right, which is in a sense related to the Catholic Church, or at least with Christianity as it is broadly understood. However, you emphasise that the Germans killed many Catholic priests starting from 1939.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0Anyone who claims that German National Socialism was far right and connected to the Church should remember what I write about in my book; specifically, about the extermination of the Catholic clergy in Polish lands that were occupied by the Germans from 1939.<\/p>\n

The Germans murdered one-third of the Catholic clergy who lived in those Polish regions that were incorporated into the German Reich: i.e. Pomerania, Greater Poland, and Upper Silesia.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

German Nazis also fought against the display of crosses and other Christian symbols in public spaces. Arthur Greiser, a German governor, had crosses and roadside shrines taken down throughout the region of Greater Poland. He ordered the destruction of the great statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Pozna\u0144 in the fall of 1939. It was one of the Germans\u2019 first decisions in Pozna\u0144. We had to deal with neo-pagan governments, as Cardinal Wyszy\u0144ski rightly called them.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>Mikl\u00f3s Horthy has a fairly good reputation in European right-wing circles. However, you point out that he bears some responsibility for the events of the 1930s that led to the Second World War.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0Hungary was formally a monarchy all along. Horthy was regent. The criticism of Horthy is that he did not hand power over to the Hungarian King, Charles IV of Habsburg, who twice came to claim his throne in 1921. Charles IV was the blessed King of Hungary and the Austrian Emperor. He was elevated to the altars as the last beatification of John Paul II\u2019s pontificate. But Horthy did not give up power, leading to all the consequences that unfolded. There was a Habsburg king in Hungary.<\/p>\n

That is why many historians say \u2013 and this is a legitimate thesis in my opinion \u2013 that perhaps there would have been a real chance for the Habsburgs to return to Vienna. If the Habsburgs had been ruling in Vienna or Budapest, it could be said that the possibility that Nazism could have infiltrated this region of Europe, such as through Austria\u2019s\u00a0Anschluss,\u00a0<\/em>would have been very limited. It was no coincidence that Hitler personally hated the Habsburgs, especially Emperor Charles I, King Charles IV of Hungary.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>The so-called generation of 1968, who hold a majority in the European Parliament, are considered by you as the heirs of this ideology of relativism, as they consider this relativism to be a dogma. Can they really be called \u201cdogmatists\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0I will quote the words of Cardinal Gerhard M\u00fcller, who said that no one is more dogmatic than a relativist when relativism is questioned. This is the pattern we see over and over again. In the times of the French Revolution, the slogan was that \u201cthere is no freedom for the enemies of freedom.\u201d Today we hear that \u201cthere is no tolerance for the enemies of tolerance.\u201d Strangely enough, the defenders of freedom of speech remained silent when President Trump was banned from social media. All those who talk so much about freedom, tolerance, and freedom of opinion somehow failed to react.<\/p>\n

Statutory law governed by relativists took power over natural law. Nowadays, we are going a step further. Today, it is not only natural law and nature itself that are being questioned. Look at the redefinition of such things as marriage, family, gender\u2026 The old truth is confirmed that a crisis of faith inevitably entails a crisis of reason. Until recently, it would have seemed absurd to replace the categories of \u201cfather\u2019s name\u201d and \u201cmother\u2019s name\u201d on questionnaires with \u201cparent A\u201d and \u201cparent B, or to eliminate men\u2019s and women\u2019s toilets in favour of other strange terms.<\/p>\n

A crisis of faith always entails a crisis of reason, because this sphere of spirituality knows no vacuum. We can see the consequences of this before our eyes.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>Do you share the opinion of Tristan Azbej, Hungary\u2019s State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and for the Hungary Helps Program, who claims that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world today?<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. These are words that reflect the state of affairs, because all the institutions and agencies that monitor persecution throughout the world have been saying for years that Christians are the most persecuted religious group globally. This is just a statement of fact.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen:\u00a0<\/strong>You write a lot about martyrs in your book. You present them as a symbol of hope.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grzegorz Kucharczyk:<\/strong>\u00a0As Saint John Paul II said, the martyrs resemble the truth that the modern world rejects. In other words, there is some truth that is non-negotiable and irrefutable. It is worth giving up everything for it, including life. This is the lesson of the martyrs. John Paul II called it \u201cthe ecumenism of martyrs.\u201d Throughout the twentieth century, we saw that Christians of various denominations fall victim to totalitarian regimes because they remained faithful to Christ.<\/p>\n

The situation is similar today. Various denominations are under attack in Islamic countries. This is also the case in Communist countries such as North Korea, China, and Cuba. It is also a reality which shows that the terrible baptism of blood that the martyrs are going through is \u2013 as the Fathers of the Church said \u2013 the seed of this Church and its growth. In this sense, martyrs are a sign of hope.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

Photo : Polonia Christiana<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grzegorz Kucharczyk is a Polish historian and Humanities professor who specialises in 19th- and 20th-century political thinking as well as German history. One of his latest offerings is a book entitled\u00a0Christophobia: 500 Years of Hate towards Jesus and the Church\u00a0(Chrystofobia: 500 lat nienawi\u015bci do Jezusa i Ko\u015bcio\u0142a).\u00a0S\u00e9bastien Meuwissen interviewed him by phone on November 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"acf":{"subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}