the last book I ever read (Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church, excerpt twelve)

from Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church by Philip Shenon:

There was always one glaring exception to the pope’s demand that the church stay out of politics: Poland. In August, weeks after the pope returned from Brazil, Poland was seized by labor unrest tied to the Communist government’s decision to raise food prices. Workers went on strike in the shipyard in Gdansk. The strike committee was led by a thirty-seven-year-old electrician, Lech Wałęsa, who went on to lead a national opposition movement. The city’s archbishop announced his support for the workers, whose rallies were often held at a shrine they created at the front of the shipyard gates, covered with images of the Virgin Mary and photos of John Paul. The strike was immediately recognized within Poland as not simply a challenge to the shipyard managers but, as it grew, a threat to the survival of the Communist government in Warsaw.

The pope would not wait long to take a side. On August 20, during an address in St. Peter’s Square, he noticed a group of several hundred Poles. Many were waving Polish flags, while others carried banners expressing support for the shipyard workers. Unexpectedly, the pope burst into song in Polish—an emotional hymn often heard at the Gdansk protests. Many Poles in the crowd wept openly and began to sing along. After the last verse, the pope called for those in the square to join him in a “prayer for my homeland.”

Days later, he dispatched telegrams to Poland’s bishops to offer his backing for the Gdansk protests and organized a special Mass in St. Peter’s in support. The situation in Poland continued to deteriorate, with Wałęsa’s trade union growing increasingly militant. The pope’s deputies said he monitored the news minute by minute. There were some days, they said, when he would talk about nothing else.