Henryk Jankowski

Henryk Jankowski in the Gdansk shipyard in August 1980

Former monument of Henryk Jankowski in Gdansk

Henryk Jankowski (born December 18, 1936 in Starogard Gdański / Preußisch Stargard , † July 12, 2010 in Danzig ) was a Polish Catholic priest , canon , and since 1990 prelate and papal honorary chaplain in Danzig.

For years Jankowski was pastor of the Kościół św. Brygidy (Brigitten Church) in Gdansk until he was released from this position in 2004. Jankowski was closely associated with the Solidarność movement and the anti-communist opposition in the People's Republic of Poland .

Life

The years up to 1980

Jankowski was born as one of eight children in a merchant family in Starogard Gdański and has a twin sister. He was an altar boy in the Kościół św. Wojciecha and the Kościół św. Mateusza (Churches of St. Adalbert and St. Matthew ) in Starogard. He graduated from high school for professionals and then worked in the tax office in the enforcement department.

In 1958 he entered the seminary . He was ordained a priest on June 21, 1964 from Bishop Edmund Nowicki . He took up his vicar position at the parish of the Holy Spirit in Gdansk until 1967, then he was in the parish of St. Barbara active. On March 17, 1970, he made the obligatory vows before the responsible confessional department in Gdansk and was formally appointed pastor of the Brigittenkirche . (The church was set on fire by soldiers of the Red Army in 1945 ; it was rebuilt around 1973.)

Chaplain of Solidarność

On August 17, 1980 he celebrated a mass for the first time with the striking workers of the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk . From then on he was connected with the later Solidarność and with the environment of its chairman Lech Wałęsa . In 2007, Peter Raina revealed in his book Teczka Ks. Henryka Jankowskiego Agenci SB w Kurii Gdańskiej (The Henryk Jankowski File of the SB Secret Service in the Gdańsk Curia) that Father Jankowski was constantly monitored by the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB), which was among the Clergymen around him had recruited many secret collaborators. His person was the subject of the interest of the Central Committee of the PVAP , on whose behalf in the middle of September 1983 in the Głos Wybrzeża (Voice of the Coast) the Jankowski slandering article “Red Radish” appeared. This was part of broadly planned provocations against the priest. A little later the newspaper printed a list of 20 employees of the "Independent Group D" of Department IV of the Ministry of the Interior, who had voiced themselves as letters to the editor to support the statement of the article.

Work after 1989

After 1989 , Jankowski repeatedly gave rise to controversy. He turned against everything that contradicted his nationalist worldview. In sermons in the Brigittenkirche, he repeatedly expressed himself anti-Semitic . In the mid-1990s, the government of Israel protested his anti-Jewish statements in sermons. In 1997 Archbishop Tadeusz Gocłowski banned Jankowski from preaching for a year. As a result of the anti-Semitic attacks, Jankowski's friendship with the Wałęsa family also broke up.

Before 2004, Jankowski spoke out against Poland joining the European Union .

Many compatriots clashed with Jankowski's pursuit of luxury , wealth and honors . He had a large following. For his 70th birthday he had a pompous celebration held, although Archbishop Gocłowski had urgently advised him not to do so in a letter.

Controversy

The 2004 affair

In July / August 2004, following a suspicion of sexual harassment of altar servers, the public prosecutor's office opened an investigation into irregularities in the rectory and improper conduct by the chaplain towards altar boys , although there was no evidence of harassment. Nevertheless, Archbishop Gocłowski released him on November 17, 2004 from his office as pastor of the Brigittenkirche. Thereupon a committee was formed to defend the priest Jankowski . The strong pressure of this group in Jankowski's parish moved the archbishop to soften his decision insofar as he allowed Jankowski to stay in his apartment in the Brigitten parish. The prelate then appealed to his followers to accept the archbishop's decision. On December 15, 2004, the protests ended.

Defamation trial

In May 2004, the writer Paweł Huelle published an article on Jankowski in the Rzeczpospolita newspaper in which he wrote, among other things: “The pastor of the Church of St. Brygida does not understand the Gospel at all and ostentatiously opposes the teachings of the Pope (...) I do not know how many times I have been in the Church of St. Brygida will hear that the Jews are destroying our country and that the European Union is plotting to destroy Poland. (…) He is a mutation of an employee of the Polish intelligence service with the Moczarian , communist phobia of spitting on everything foreign: Jews, gays, euro enthusiasts. (...) He exchanges his Poles for any passport at any opportunity - ethnic Germans, Iraqis or Russian - if only he likes the beautiful clothes, new limousines, titles and medals - pinned to his uniform reminiscent of Colonel Gaddafi, the the priest likes to attract the prelate. "

Jankowski filed a lawsuit against Huelle for violating personal rights. On September 12, 2005, the District Court in Gdansk ruled that Huelle had exceeded the limits of permitted criticism in the press and had violated the rights of Priest Jankowski in this matter; he also had to apologize to the Rzeczpospolita . Huelle appealed and won it.

Polish secret service informant

In 2007 the first press reports appeared in Poland, according to which Jankowski had been an informant for the secret service SB , which is controlled by the communist party leadership . Jankowski denied this. In 2009, the Institute for National Remembrance confirmed the press reports. In the 1980s, Jankowski reported under the code names “Delegate” and “Libella” to the SB on internal consultations by Solidarność and the church leadership.

Renewed sexual abuse allegations in 2018

On December 3, 2018, the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza published a detailed report in which it accused Henryk Jankowski of sexual abuse , citing eyewitnesses . According to the research, this had already started at the end of the 1960s . Jankowski's activities were an open secret, but no one dared to denounce them. This was due to the fact that abuse by Catholic clergy was a taboo subject and the priest was too powerful. A girl who was possibly been pregnant by Jankowski had, suicide committed. In his rectory, the priest also surrounded himself with teenagers who had to be of sexual service to him at night and who sometimes acted as butlers during the day. The accusation was also raised that Tadeusz Goclowski ( Bishop of Danzig from the end of 1984 to April 2008 ) knew of the events and only warned his subordinates mildly.
On December 7, 2018, the Jankowski monument in Gdansk was showered with paint by strangers. Several protests also took place there. Gdańsk's Lord Mayor Paweł Adamowicz spoke out in favor of removing the monument.

On February 21, 2019, at the same time as the start of the anti-abuse conference in the Vatican, Jankowski's monument became the target of a protest action: During the night, three men pulled the statue from its base with a rope so that it fell on previously laid out tires. Then they put an altar boy robe and children's underwear on the statue, which was undamaged during the action. “The aim is to destroy the false and hideous myth of Henryk Jankowski, not the memorial material,” wrote the activists.

On March 7, 2019, the City Council of Gdansk decided to revoke Jankowski's honorary citizenship, rename Jankowski Square and remove his monument.

Honors

• On December 15, 2000, Jankowski received honorary citizenship of Danzig .
• On May 10, 2007, Roman Giertych , then Minister for National Education of Poland, presented him with the 'Medal of the Commission for National Education'.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Aleksander Szumilas: The role of the Catholic Church in the Polish reform process . Ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8382-0062-0 , p. 75.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Theo Mechtenberg: Trend reversal or ultimate test? On the situation of the Catholic Church in Poland . In: Orientation , vol. 62 (1998), pp. 46–48, here p. 47.
3. ↑ domradio.de July 13, 2010: Controversial legend (obituary)
4. ↑ Reinhold Vetter : Poland's stubborn hero. How Lech Wałe̜sa outwitted the communists . Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag (BWV), Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1767-2 , p. 68.
5. ↑ Leszek Szymowski: . Agenci SB contrasting John Paul II Warsaw 2012, pp 246-249.
6. ↑ wyborcza.pl: Secretary Świętej Brygidy. Dlaczego Kościół przez lata pozwalał księdzu Jankowskiemu wykorzystywać dzieci?
7. ↑ Solidarność pastor a child molester? Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, December 14, 2018, accessed on December 16, 2018 . 
8. ↑ spiegel.de February 22, 2019: Posterboys of inaction
9. ↑ Poland activists topple monument of priest Henryk Jankowski, suspected of being abused, in Gdansk. Welt.de, February 21, 2019, accessed on February 22, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Agata Olszewska: Ks. Prał. Henryk Jankowski never będzie już Honorowym Obywatelem Gdańska. Co z pomnikiem? In: Portal Miasta Gdańska. City of Gdansk , March 7, 2019, accessed March 7, 2019 (Polish). 
11. ^ Polish medal Komisji Edukacji Narodowej
12. ↑ fakty.interia.pl