Polish prelate says values that led to Solidarity needed for Europe

Published: 2005-09-01

GDANSK, Poland (CNS ) -- A Polish archbishop said the same Christian values that led to the formation of the country's Solidarity union movement in 1980 are needed to build a united Europe today. "Solidarity was born out of concern for the human person and his spiritual and material needs and from a feeling of great responsibility for the nation's common good," Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow told a congregation of 30,000 at a Mass in Gdansk's Solidarity Square Aug. 31. "Although it brought together various often diametrically different viewpoints, it appealed to national and religious traditions and awakened a patriotic awareness. It made people sensitive to the needs of others, especially the weak, sick and interned. This spirit of Christian values is needed today ... by a united and uniting Europe if it is not to share the fate of a castle built on sand," said the archbishop. Senior politicians and church leaders from two dozen countries gathered in the northern port city to mark the signing of the Gdansk Accords, under which Poland's communist regime accepted 21 demands by 17,000 striking shipyard workers from the newly formed Solidarity union.

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