Karol Wojtyla is the most famous Polish in history, but the current Government of Warsaw He does not want a museum to be dedicated to him. On the twentieth anniversary of the death of John Paul II, the Ministry of Culture and the National Heritage decided to intent on a cause against the Lux Veritatis Foundation with which a collaboration agreement was signed in 2018 for the foundation of Museum of memory and identity entitled to the Polish Pope. The construction of the structure began in Toruń in 2019 and the Ministry provided for state funding to allow its opening. In the meantime, however, the 2023 elections have led to a political turn in the country with the birth of a coalition government led by the popular Donald Tusk But which are part of strongly secular parties.
The ‘no’ to Wojtyla
The story was reported in Italy by the Polish journalist and writer WLODZIMIERZ REDZIOCH that The new daily compass he wrote:
“Today the buildings of the future museum have been completed and the exhibition must be completed. Unfortunately, after the change of the government, the Ministry of Culture, led by Hanna Wroblewska, is trying to destroy this great initiative like many other similar ones who aim to maintain Long live the memory of the Polish Pope.
In the cause Understanding against the Foundation and which aims to stop the state funding for the cultural institution, the Government has brought up the expiry of the contract for the use of the property on which the museum is based. Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, well -known director of Radio Maryja as well as president of the Foundation, he explained to his issuer that in reality the Ministry already received the notary acts in May 2023 that extended the right to use of property for the following years. Therefore, the cultural institution dedicated to John Paul II has all the titles to stay there. The accusation of the government is rejected by the Lux Veritatis Foundation and deemed pretentious.
The new line
The Museum of Memory and identity was born to enhance the Polish history Putting the figure of John Paul II in the center and giving space to the testimonies of Jews saved by the Poles during the Nazi persecution. Teamwork between public and private strongly wanted by the then Minister of Culture Piotr Leński, exponent of conservative party Pis. However, the electoral statement of the anti-morawiecki coalition has made this project fall out of the way, in the wake of the less favorable politics to the Catholic Church that the third Tusk government, on the push of non-popular allies, is realizing. To the Ministry of Culture, first under the guidance of Liberal Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz and then with the progressive Hanna Wroblewskait was decided to ‘close the taps’ to the museum wanted to enhance the Polish identity in the name of the most important compatriot of the last century. Wroblewska had been the director of Zachęta, one of the most famous artistic institutions of Warsaw, but was not renewed in his assignment by the then Minister Glsbki who, according to a consolidated thesis, would not have liked some exhibitions dedicated to LGBT RIGHTS. Now that the art curator has taken her place, the Toruń project who was the conservative Leński to the heart is meeting obstacles and Radio Maryja He has already called the faithful to the mobilization.
Wojtyla’s memory
Twenty years after his death which caused a motorcycle of collective emotion at home, Wojtyla’s memory is no longer so armored. Those who are devoted to the figure of the Polish Pope, however, can still find museums dedicated to him. In Wadowice, his hometown, there is the house-museum with finds of the life of one of the longest-lived popes in the history of the Church. But also in the capital it is possible to visit a place that unites its memory with that of another famous Polish prelate, the cardinal persecuted by the communist regime Stefan Wyszyński.
In the outskirts of Warsaw, near the imposing temple of Divine Providence, the museum is located in which you can be accompanied by the journalist and writer Wojciech Bobrowski and other guides specialized in a multimedia trip In the life of the two national heroes, between objects that belonged to them and gifts of contemporary art as the work as the work of the Italian artist Elia Li Gioi who has combined the grimace of pain of John Paul II AA The scream of Edvard Munch.