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Interesting coincidence that this saint's day should come so soon after the death of Pope John Paul II. As Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II was Bishop of Krakow in the 1970s, just as St. Stanislaus was bishop of Krakow beginning in 1072.
Stanislaus was born about 1030, educated in Belgium (or perhaps Paris), ordained a priest and was appointed a canon of the cathedral after his return to Krakow. He was known for being a powerful preacher and for being charitable toward the poor.
Always known for his outspokenness, Stanislaus criticized especially the unjust wars and immoral acts of King Boleslaus II and excommunicated the king in 1079.
Like St. Thomas More and St. Thomas Becket, Stanislaus is remembered for his strong opposition to an unjust government, which resulted in his death. Henry VIII had Sir Thomas More put in the Tower and ultimately beheaded, while Henry II sent four knights to murder Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
King Boleslaus II couldn't get his men to enter the chapel of St. Michael the Archangel to kill the bishop so Boleslaus killed him with his own hands, attacking Stanislaus in the sanctuary. This was in 1079. When he heard the news, Pope Gregory the Great put the entire country of Poland under interdict, so that no one could receive the sacraments, until Boleslaus stepped down from his throne. The king fled to Hungary and supposedly became a penitent in a Benedictine monastery.
In 1088, Stanislaus's body was interred in the cathedral in Krakow, which was then renamed after him. In 1964, Karol Wojtyla was installed as bishop in that same cathedral.
"It is not without significance that the Communist authorities in Poland negotiated the first visit of John Paul II in 1979 after his election to the papacy the previous year (the ninth centenary of the death of Stanislaus). They wanted it to occur a month after his April feast."
"Everyone understood how symbolic it would have been for the former archbishop of Krakow to be in Poland on the feast of a saint who withstood a hostile regime in the name of the gospel. In fact, a secret memo of the Polish Communist Party warned their activists the pope would try to make St. Stanislaus "the patron of the opposition to the authorities and the defender of human rights." How perceptive the memo was!"
"While Stanislaus is the patron saint of Poland, his popularity pervades Eastern Europe. His name is honored in Lithuania, the Ukraine and Belarus—countries that recently experienced political tyranny and religious persecution."
"In our own day, Poles in various parts of the world are intensely patriotic. The name of Stanislaus is honored not only as a common first name but also as the name of many churches in the Polish diaspora."
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