Archbishop calls for unity at slain Polish mayor’s funeral
A Catholic archbishop and other speakers at the funeral Saturday of slain Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz urged an end to the political and social divisions in Poland, targeting some of their comments at the country’s ruling right-wing party.
Top Polish and European officials and thousands of citizens joined Adamowicz’s widow, two daughters and other family members at the Mass held at Gdansk’s vast Gothic St. Mary’s Basilica.
Adamowicz, 53, died Monday after being stabbed the night before at a charity event in the northern Polish city. The arrested suspect is an ex-convict who publicly voiced a grudge against an opposition party, Civic Platform, that Adamowicz once belonged to.
The slaying, which came as Poland faces a deep political divide over actions by the conservative ruling Law and Justice party, was a shock to the nation. It has drawn calls for greater national unity and condemnation of hate speech that has intensified in public amid political rivalries.
Adamowicz himself was the target of criticism in state media and hate messages by some far-right activists for his tolerance and openness to others regardless of their race or beliefs. He was against Poland’s refusal to accept migrants and against the government’s moves to control the judiciary. He had called Gdansk a city of “freedom and Solidarity.”
In his sermon at the funeral, Gdansk Arch- bishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz said Adamowicz’s death was a ringing alarm bell.
“Our homeland needs harmony” in its social life and politics, Glodz said.
Other speakers at the church drew applause, unusual for a funeral ceremony in predominantly Catholic Poland, when they denounced hostility in public and political life.
“We will not remain indifferent to the spreading poison of hatred in the streets, in the media, in the internet, in schools, in parliament and also in the church,” said Dominican friar Ludwik Wisniewski, a friend of the slain mayor.
The black urn with the mayor’s ashes was placed before the altar, surrounded by dozens of white roses. It was later put to rest in a niche at one of the basilica’s chapels.