Bolesławiec, 13 November 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Because various speculations, and even crude accusations directed also at the local parish community, have appeared among the comments concerning the Independence Day celebrations on your portal, I hasten, out of a sense of ordinary honesty, to explain the entire situation to everyone who has been deceived and manipulated. This will not be an assessment of the situation that arose, but a statement of the facts in response to the lies that are beginning to appear.

  1. Every year, the District Office, together with the local parish community, co-organized the Independence Day celebrations. This year, without giving any reason, no one from the District Office contacted the parish about the matter.
  2. Since we were not informed what program the District Office would organize, we scheduled the Holy Mass for the intention of the Homeland without any changes, just as in previous years, at 11:00 a.m., so that it would not conflict with other holiday events.
  3. No one from the District Office invited the dean priests to pray on Independence Day. To date, neither I personally nor my neighbor from Zamkowy Square have received invitations.
  4. At the end of the Eucharist, I mentioned to the numerous Bolesławiec residents gathered by the festive altar that no one had closed the Sanctuary to the initiative of praying for the Homeland on 11 November. But this year, no one representing the co-hosts of the celebration took an interest in this church either.
  5. Finally, given such a confused stance, I am not surprised that the representatives of the local authorities, having to choose between the roll-call ceremony in Bolesławiec Market Square and the Eucharist together with others in the Sanctuary, chose the latter, as did many other participants in the prayer gathered for this Eucharist in the Sanctuary.
  6. Most important, however, is that we prayed, as in many other places in Poland, for the Homeland and for those exercising authority, so that the freedom won, paid for with dedicated work and obtained through prayer, might become for us a constant call to build a Poland sovereign internally and externally, a common home for believers and non-believers.

With expressions of respect for believers and non-believers,
whom we also ask for ordinary human respect
for the religious feelings of the local Catholics

Rev. Dr. Andrzej Jarosiewicz
parish priest