WARSAW, July 8, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lech Walesa, former chairman of Poland, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and leader of Poland's legendary anti-communist Solidarity freedom movement, has expressed his hold for the protests against pop singer Madonna's concert in Warsaw.
Madonna is scheduled to get her "Sticky & Sweet" concert tour to Warsaw's Bemowo Airport on August 15, the day on which the Catholic Church celebrates the solemn Marian feast of the Assumption. The day is particularly important to Poles who observe the original Madonna under the deed of Mary, Queen of Poland, at shrines all over the country, including the most important one at Jasna Gora (Bright Mountain) in Czestochowa.
Three days ago, the singer sparked outrage in Poland when she was depicted on the report of the Down magazine Machina, dressed as the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. The monks of the Jasna Gora monastery published a statement saying that they were dismayed to see a consecrated symbol used in a secular way for advertising and publicity.
"It's a satanic provocation" Walesa said at a press conference. Pointing to the picture of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa that he has been carrying pinned to his lapel for decades, Walesa said: "I hold this portrait on my chest, so it is understandable, that I am not happy about this concert taking office on the day of Her feast."
"I am a man of religion and I would ask for such events not to pass on the day of such an important feast of my religion," Walesa said.
He added that he would be willing to fill with the pop star to discuss a variety of dates for the concert. "I accept aught against her personally, even though she has committed many provocations," Walesa observed.
Krzysztof Zagozda of the Catholic group Unum Principum also shared his feeling around the 50-year-old singer's concert date: "It offends our spiritual faith. Besides that, Madonna's performances are anti-Christian."
"The concert of a highly perverse singer who calls herself 'Madonna' is deeply humiliating to Warsaw residents and Poles in general," said parliamentarian Marian Brudzynski, a member of the opposition Law and Justice party, who wrote a missive to the mayor of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, asking for her intervention.
Brudzynski told the Krakow Post that the following step in the objection against the concert will be a prayer crusade, starting on the anniversary of the first of Warsaw Uprising of World War II.
"We have applied for a license to keep Masses outside the Warsaw City Hall," Brudzynski said. "At 3pm every day we'll say the Divine Mercy Chaplet in presence of the City Hall (which issued permission for Madonna's concert), then later the Mass, we will march towards the Warsaw Rising Heroes Monument, saying the Rosary on the way. There we will demonstrate our patriotism, making our presence obvious especially to the hypocritical officials."
The prayer crusade will go on the 1st of Venerable and keep every day until the 15th, the scheduled date of the show.
Another Catholic group has informed the media that it intends to protest Madonna's Warsaw performance by sending letters to organizers of the show, telling them that should the concert take place, proper authorities will be informed that an crime of spiritual feelings has taken place, which is against Polish law, and that the law protecting religious symbols has been broken.
"The option of the see for the show (on a major Marian feast), as easily as the subject of some advertisements (such as the one including the caption 'There's not room for two queens in that country'), both involve a clear intent to offend religious feelings of Poland's many Catholics," the group's letters state. The letters conclude with, "Therefore, let me head out that an offence of spiritual feelings constitutes a usurpation of Article 196 of the Polish Criminal Code. Should the concert take place, I mean to inform proper authorities that you get broken the aforementioned article of the Law."
Read previous LSN coverage:
Uproar in Poland as Pop Diva Madonna Schedules Concert for Catholic Holy Day http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09061606.html