Polish bishops praise opposition leader Jacek Kuron, dead from cancer

Published: 2004-06-22

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Polish bishops have praised veteran opposition leader Jacek Kuron, who died at 70 after a long battle with cancer. "Kuron's biography shows even people of the left can find dialogue and common values in the church," Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin told Poland's Catholic information agency, KAI. "He was a top opposition activist and minister of labor. But he'll remain in popular memory above all as a person sensitive to suffering who stood with the poor," the archbishop said. Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, rector of Krakow's Papal Theology Academy, praised Kuron's "strange and praiseworthy change" from communist to opposition leader. "Although we couldn't fully identify with him, he was a man of great passion, a person-revolution," Bishop Pieronek told KAI. "He saw Poland differently than I did, but he cared deeply about it," the bishop said.

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