Mayor of Warsaw fights the Cross
Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski does not want religious symbols in the spaces of the capital's offices. He recently signed an ordinance on the implementation of 'equal treatment standards' in Warsaw offices. The new regulations not only ban the hanging of crosses in office buildings, but also prohibit employees from displaying religious symbols on their desks.
In addition, the regulation recommends that officials address people who consider themselves transgender and non-binary by using their preferred pronouns.
Catholic Patriots
Trzaskowski's decision was met with opposition from Catholics, and also sparked a debate on the secularity of the state. Opponents of removing crosses from public space pointed out that the Cross is not only a religious symbol, but also an important element of Polish identity.
Legia Warsaw supporters put up a banner in defence of the Cross. Source: Platform X
The demand to remove religious symbols from the walls and desks of offices goes beyond the powers of the Mayor of Warsaw and is unlawful.
Meanwhile, the teaching of the Catholic Church is clear that state authority should help the community to develop virtues and to combat vices. Local officials cannot combat the symbol of our Redemption, which reminds us that man's ultimate goal is not the temporal 'here and now', but a blissful eternity with God in Heaven or eternal damnation.
Immortale Dei
It is worth recalling in this context the immortal words of Pope Leo XII in his encyclical Immortale Dei:
There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favour of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies.
What's next?
Will President Trzaskowski go even further and want to remove the cross from the Sigismund's Column or from the "Sursum Corda" monument at the Holy Cross Basilica?
Sigismund III Catholic King of Poland and the famous Sursum Corda statue.