John Paul II in Gdańsk

The visits of John Paul II to Poland stirred the entire country. Papal masses were attended by hundreds of thousands of the faithful. In the era of communist dictatorship, the Pope restored the feeling of national pride in Poles. During his third visit to Poland, one of the masses celebrated by John Paul II was held in the Gdańsk’s district of Zaspa. In a sermon addressed to workers, the Pope said: “Work can never and nowhere be treated as a commodity, as a human being must be a subject, and not a commodity, to another human being. He enters his work through his entire humanity and his entire subjectivity. In the social life, work opens up the entire dimension of human subjectivity, but also of the subjectivity of the society made up of working people. Therefore, one needs to perceive all human rights in relation to the work of a human being, and one must respect all of them”.