Scottish Catholic Observer

The Papal visit by Pope John Paul II on June 1, 1982 is looked back on by all Scottish Catholics as one of the defining moments in our history. The glorious sunny day at Bellahouston Park and the raucous reception given to the Holy Father by Scotland’s young people live on today as the iconic images of a historic visit.

But for one section of Scotland’s Catholics, the visit had even more meaning. For the exiled Poles who made their life here, and for their children and grandchildren, it was both a religious celebration and an occasion of great national pride.

Having had a long relationship with Scotland going back to an exodus of Scots to Poland in the 17th century and beyond, the Polish people entered into a new chapter of their lives with the decision taken by many free Poles to stay in Scotland in the years following the Second World War, as their homeland disappeared into the Soviet Bloc and Communism forcibly took control of the proud, independent nation that had suffered so much in the previous years.

Faced with the unappealing prospect of being repatriated to a country so totally under the wing of Soviet Russia, which took a dim view of their fiercely held Catholic Faith, many Poles took the decision to build new lives for themselves in Scotland.

New centres for the Polish population were duly established in Dunfermline, Edinburgh and, perhaps most notably, in Glasgow, where the parish of St Simon’s in Partick became, over time, the heart of Scotland’s Polish community. There, each Sunday, they could celebrate their Faith in their native tongue, singing their own hymns and maintaining the traditions that they had left behind in Poland. Today, a memorial still stands to the Polish men and women who practised their Faith in St Simon’s, and to parish priest Fr Patrick Tierney who welcomed them so openly to his church and to whom the Polish expatriates were so grateful.

With their new life in Scotland, the Poles joined the vast ranks of immigrant Catholics in Scotland, along with the Irish, Italians and Lithuanians, who had similarly arrived on these shores from their native lands, and found their place in Scottish society, and with the rest of Scotland’s Catholics they shared the same rite of passage as they moved out from being ‘the ghetto church’ and into Scotland’s mainstream when they welcomed Pope John Paul II to Glasgow and Edinburgh in the biggest public display of Catholicism since Catholic emancipation over a century and a half earlier.

However, Scotland’s Poles had another reason to celebrate with Blessed Pope John Paul II’s arrival here. They were not just welcoming the Holy Father, they were welcoming their countryman. It was not just a celebration of their Faith, but of their nationhood. Less than 40 years after the trauma of the war and the difficult decision to remain so far from home, part of Poland came to Bellahouston Park and to Murrayfield with John Paul II, and those among the 300,000 who claim Poland as their own welcomed him more warmly than anyone.

Aleksander Alfer, known as Alec, was among the delegation of Poles who welcomed the Holy Father.

“We were received by the Pope at St Andrew’s College before making our way to Bellahouston Park for the Mass,” he said. “I think he was very pleased to find Polish representatives in Glasgow, just as we were pleased to welcome him here.

“It was a great surprise and honour for the Polish community. We were delighted that we were welcoming the first Polish Pope, and the Polish community in Glasgow was very excited that John Paul II was here with us.”

As the Polish representatives, two families from the Polish community in Glasgow, welcomed the Pope, 10-year-old Denise Porada presented the Holy Father with a bunch of flowers. Pope John Paul II reciprocated with Rosary beads for his compatriots.

The exchange of gifts, though common in Papal visits, summed up the great affection that the Polish community had for a Pope that even today Poland looks on devotedly as ‘their Pope.’ And even today the warm gestures continue to bear fruit for the Polish community.

“It was a wonderful day for us,” Mr Alfer added. “Only very recently someone told me of footage on YouTube of us being received by the Pope which I never even knew existed. We all have our photos of the day and the Rosary beads he presented to each of us but it was a great surprise to find footage of us meeting the Pope after all these years.”

With the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005 the Polish community in Scotland again had the chance to show its appreciation and affection for the man who has come to be known as John Paul the Great.

By that stage the Polish community had been swelled by the admittance of Poland to the EU and the subsequent influx of Poles to the UK which followed, and while much of the grief saw sad glances cast homeward to Poland and particularly to the city of Krakow, where he had been archbishop, many looked back to the sunny days of May 31 and June 1, 1982 when Scotland’s Poles had joined the country’s Catholics in welcoming their Pope to these shores.

Speaking of the news of his death after a long and visible battle with illness, Mr Alfer looked back sadly on the time but shared the happy experiences the Catholic community in Scotland had when Pope John Paul II’s successor Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in Bellahouston Park in 2010, and looked forward to the legacy of Polish Faith and national identity which had been so strengthened by the Papal visit of 1982.

“We were all very sad when he died,” he said. “But we were able to celebrate again in 2010 when Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass at Bellahouston too.

“We went this time with Fr Willy Slavin and St Simon’s parish. Obviously there were a lot of Poles there, but we went together as a parish first and foremost.

“We still celebrate our Masses there and it is great that even after all the years since the Polish community began here and since the visit of Pope John Paul II to Glasgow that Polish people still have the opportunity to choose from Masses in Polish right across the city.”

Today with Pope John Paul II being honoured across the world, and making his way towards sainthood, the Polish community in Scotland can look back with pride not just on his Papacy, but on the special days he spent in Scotland in 1982.

PIC: MICHAEL TURNBULL