Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski: 1901-1981
He was a man who matched his own stern definition of a hero: someone willing "to live in toil, suffering, pain and sacrifice for years." Yet he was neither a political rabble-rouser nor a Christian martyr. Violence was abhorrent to him; indeed, his personal intercession helped prevent bloody clashes at more than one critical juncture in his nation's history. But no army of freedom fighters could have done more than Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski to wear down the all-embracing authority of Poland's atheistic Communist regime.
For more than three decades,...