Leo XIV compares transmission of faith within families to Poland’s defense against Nazis
October 06, 2025
In a Latin-language letter for the centenary of the Archdiocese of Gdańsk, Pope Leo XIV compared the struggle to transmit the Christian spirit within families to the Battle of Westerplatte, in which the Polish army held out for seven days against a Nazi attack early in World War II.
Pope Leo asked Cardinal Dominik Duka, OP, his envoy to the October 14 centenary Mass at Oliwa Cathedral, to “instruct the people of God in the necessity of proclaiming the Gospel and transmitting the Christian spirit, especially in the domestic sphere, so that the family may be strong for God and in this way the strength of the entire nation may increase from day to day. This task now, at this moment, as St. John Paul II once asserted, can be compared to the place of Westerplatte and its defense.”
In a 1987 visit to Westerplatte, Pope St. John Paul II told young people that each person, during the course of his life, faces his own Battle of Westerplatte. In a 1999 Mass in Gdańsk, St. John Paul again recalled the heroism of Polish soldiers at Westerplatte.
Pope Leo’s letter to Cardinal Duka, dated September 14, was released by the Vatican on October 4. The Archdiocese of Gdańsk, established in 1925 in territory taken from the Dioceses of Chelmno and Warmia, was raised to the dignity of an archdiocese in 1992.
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