On Sunday, children’s shoes and chocolate bars appeared in front of the parish house door of the basilica in Bolesławiec, on Kościelna Street. We received the photographs and video recording from one of the residents. For now, it is not known who arranged the items or what the exact purpose of the initiative was.
However, this is not a gesture that can be interpreted as unequivocally accidental. The distinctive symbolism of children’s shoes has appeared in public spaces for years—first on a mass scale in August 2018, when, as part of the international “Baby Shoes Remember” campaign, they were hung on fences and gates of churches throughout Poland. It was an expression of remembrance for victims of sexual crimes committed by clergy and a protest against their concealment by the Church hierarchy.
We asked the parish priest of the Bolesławiec basilica to interpret the event. The clergyman said that he perceived the situation differently from what organizers of similar campaigns in the past might have suggested.
“I treated it as the abandonment of unwanted items on private property. I deal with interpreting the Gospel, and all public statements are available during Holy Masses in the basilica,” Father Bogusław Wolański wrote to us.
The matter remains open. We are awaiting any possible statement from the diocesan curia in Legnica, to which the parish of the Bolesławiec basilica belongs.