The Spiritual Foundation of the Project
Fr. Prof. Tadeusz Guz
Philosopher, theologian, priest — guardian of the dialogue between Athens and Jerusalem
The Man and His Mission
In the family village of Szody near Zwierzyniec in Roztocze, among the hills stretching from Kraśnik to Lviv, an extraordinary work is now growing — the "Athens of Roztocze" center. Its creator, Fr. Prof. Tadeusz Guz, is a rare figure in Polish intellectual and spiritual life: a philosopher who understands his scholarship as service to truth, and a priest who understands his priesthood as service to man.
"This is a work of God entrusted to this gentle Man, so that in His family village of Szody near Zwierzyniec in Roztocze, he could proclaim and defend the truth." — Aldona Ciborowska
Beginnings
Roots
The Lublin Land and Youth
Fr. Tadeusz Guz comes from Roztocze — a land of exceptional character, where nature and history have intertwined in a unique way. It was on this soil that his sensitivity was shaped, and here his thinking about Poland, the Church, and man is rooted. Already as a young man he knew that philosophy would be his calling:
"Even then I knew that I had this philosophical bent."
The path to the priesthood led through years of formation, the fruit of which was his priestly ordination in the Lublin cathedral. This moment coincided with one of the most important events in the history of the Polish Church — the martyrdom of Blessed Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko:
"Two months after his martyrdom, I was ordained a priest in the Lublin cathedral."
Spiritual Father
Blessed Father Jerzy
Fr. Prof. Guz's connection with the figure of Blessed Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko is deep and multidimensional. As a young curate, he brought young people from the Lublin region to Żoliborz so they could draw on the wisdom of the martyr-priest:
"I had already come here many times before, when in the 1980s, still as a very young curate, I brought young people from the Lublin region to seek the wisdom of Blessed Father Jerzy here."
The death of Fr. Popiełuszko became a turning point for the young Fr. Guz — a moment in which the question arose of continuing his mission through the path of philosophy:
"Shortly before my priestly ordination, I was able to watch the television coverage of his funeral, and then I thought to myself: 'Jerzy, your mission here in this world is finished, but not in eternity. And since I have this philosophical bent, I will think about how to continue your unsurpassed work.'"
This inner dialogue with the figure of the martyr took on, over time, a mystical dimension. Fr. Guz speaks of a dream that remains for him to this day a vivid and indelible experience — a dream in which Fr. Jerzy rode down on a bicycle and, without a word, handed letters to the young priest. This image — of letters entrusted and received — became for Fr. Guz a symbol of the mission he felt bound to undertake. He admitted openly:
"If it were not for you, Blessed Father Jerzy, I would not be here."
Service
Priesthood
Service without counting the wounds
Priestly Spirituality
Eternal Word, Only-begotten Son of God, teach me to serve You as You deserve; to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that I do Your Most Holy Will. Amen. — Prayer of St. Ignatius Loyola
Fr. Guz's priesthood began in a special historical context — in the Poland of the 1980s, in an atmosphere of spiritual and national awakening. He served as curate in Rejowiec Fabryczny — a town, as he himself says, "destined for total communization" — where he took part in building a church. He then transferred to a curacy in Chełm, where he served at the basilica on Chełm Hill.
The Path of Learning
Years in Germany
Philosophy and Scholarship
In 1989, Fr. Prof. Guz went to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he spent fourteen years — until 2003. It was a period of intensive philosophical study, culminating in a doctorate that became the foundation of his later scholarly work. It was there that his philosophical craftsmanship was fully formed, along with his particular interest in the ideologies of modernity — communism, materialism, atheism — which he made the subject of his years-long research:
"Among other things, I work on theoretical treatises dealing with those ideologies which killed the body of Blessed Father Jerzy."
Even during the fourteen years spent abroad, Fr. Guz never lost his connection to the place he considered the spiritual center of his life — the grave of Blessed Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko in Żoliborz:
"When I was in the Federal Republic of Germany for fourteen years, from 1989 to 2003, whenever I came back to my homeland, I would always come here."
Legacy
Return to Poland
Professor and Teacher
After returning to his home country, Fr. Prof. Guz took up academic work, becoming one of the most recognizable Catholic philosophers in Poland. His lectures, radio and television broadcasts, and numerous scholarly publications won him a wide circle of listeners and readers. He describes the field of his scholarly work precisely:
"The field of scholarship I have worked in for twenty-eight years now requires me, as a philosopher, to seek the first reasons for that which is — that is, for the whole of reality. According to Aristotle, a person speaks properly, that is, in accordance with truth, about the reality being studied only when, on the path of knowledge, he reaches the sources."
At the center of his scholarly interests lies the relationship between reason and faith, between classical philosophy and Christian Revelation, between truth and ideology. A special place in his research is occupied by the Person of Jesus Christ — as the most severely attacked and at the same time the only answer to the questions posed by human reason:
"In the last five centuries, the person most attacked of all Divine, angelic, and human persons is the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. In all ideologies, whatever they may be called. For almost thirty years now they have been the subject of my research, and I must say with full responsibility that no one in the last five centuries has been so maligned as the Lord Jesus."
Thought
Philosophy as a Defense of Truth
Fr. Prof. Guz practices philosophy in a way that is unfashionable today in academic circles — as a search for objective truth, rooted in the classical Greek tradition and completed by Christian Revelation. He does not shy away from putting forward theses that seem provocative to the contemporary spirit of the age:
"(...) the university questions basic truths (...), we have lost, in our rationality, basic intellectual structures such as the principle of identity, non-contradiction, sufficient reason. (...) We have a great deal of sensible work to do in order to strengthen ourselves in a healthy — in both the natural and supernatural sense — identity."
Philosophy, as he understands it, is not an academic game of concepts — it is a matter of life and death, of salvation and damnation, of freedom and enslavement:
"What will happen to the world depends on what people think. And on whether they are able to love as St. Paul recommends, or not."
Its deepest purpose is to lead man to God — the sole source of truth, goodness, and beauty:
"(...) we, as rational beings, need to constantly nourish ourselves with God, in order to keep exploring anew His Truth and the truths about ourselves and about the world (...)."
Mission
A Mission for the Nation and the Church
Fr. Prof. Guz is a man deeply rooted in Polish spiritual and national tradition. The patron of the sciences of the Republic — Fr. Piotr Skarga — and Blessed Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko are for him points of reference, "great chapters in Polish history." His appeals to Poles are always rooted in this tradition and directed toward the future:
"(...) as Poles we have a great mission — to save everyone. And since it is not always possible to save everyone, then to save those whom we can. But one thing should be present in all of us, and absolutely in every Polish Catholic: to try to save every human being, without any exception."
For Fr. Guz, saving a person means above all leading him toward the truth — toward God, who is its ultimate source and goal:
"It is about them saving our souls. For they may reason and act splendidly, grow in virtue and support one another. They may love. Yet on the way to Eternity, to the eternally Loving Triune God in Heaven, they need teachers. They need teachers so that reason, will, and memory — the faculties of the spirit — may be set toward discovering, bringing forth, and defending truth, goodness, and beauty."
Chronology
Path of Life and Thought
1959-02-07
Born in Zwierzyniec
1979
Secondary school leaving exam (matura)
1979–1984
Studies in theology at the Faculty of Catholic Theology, Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) — Master's degree in theology
1984-12-16
Priestly ordination in Lublin
1988–1989
Studies in philosophy at the Faculty of Christian Philosophy, KUL
1989–1994
Studies in philosophy and sociology at the Gustav-Siewerth-Akademie in the Federal Republic of Germany — Master's degree in philosophy and sociology
1996
Doctorate in humanities in the field of philosophy at the Faculty of Christian Philosophy, ATK, Warsaw
1996–2001
Research assistant at the Gustav-Siewerth-Akademie in the Federal Republic of Germany
2001
Habilitation in philosophy at the Faculty of Christian Philosophy, UKSW, Warsaw
2001
Full professorship; Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Gustav-Siewerth-Akademie in the Federal Republic of Germany
since 2003
Associate professor at the Faculty of Law and Economics, KUL, branch campus in Tomaszów Lubelski
since 2006
Head of the Department of Philosophy of Law at the Faculty of Law and Economics, KUL, branch campus in Tomaszów Lubelski
2005/06
Vice-Dean, Faculty of Law and Economics, KUL, branch campus in Tomaszów Lubelski
2006-2012
Dean, Faculty of Law and Economics, KUL, branch campus in Tomaszów Lubelski
2012-2013
Vice-Dean, Faculty of Law and Economics, KUL, branch campus in Tomaszów Lubelski
2017
Title of Professor of Humanities conferred by the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda
A Voice in Public Space
Unfinished Conversations
One of the most important fruits of Fr. Prof. Guz's ministry is the broadcast series "Unfinished Conversations" (Rozmowy Niedokończone), aired on Radio Maryja and TV Trwam — thousands of hours of conversations on philosophy, theology, the history of ideas, natural law, family, state, and culture. Their title is programmatic — these conversations are unfinished, because the truth they proclaim is never exhausted in a single meeting:
"They are, in a sense, a foretaste of the unfinished conversations, lectures, and meetings in which we hope to take part, which we wish to enjoy at the Athens of Roztocze, so that, as the title of the 2017 broadcast puts it: to go forth and proclaim Jesus Christ."
Personality
Portrait of a Man
Fr. Prof. Tadeusz Guz is a man whose life path — from Roztocze, through Chełm, Germany, and Polish universities, to Szozdy — is a path of consistent seeking and proclaiming of the truth. Aldona Ciborowska, who knows him closely, describes him as a "gentle Man," to whom God entrusted a great work. The prayer of St. Ignatius, which he chose for his priestly jubilee, is the best key to understanding this path: to give without counting the cost; to fight without heeding the wounds; to labor without seeking rest. And to fulfill — despite all difficulties, despite the enormity of the work, despite the post-diluvian sandstone that must be cut and laid — the Most Holy Will of God.
For the mission of Catholics and the Holy Church — as Aldona Ciborowska says — continues. And with it continues the ministry of this priest-philosopher from Roztocze.