Józef Tischner

Tischner was born in Stary Sącz to a Góral family and grew up in the village Łopuszna in the south east of Poland.

In 1980s he was considered the semi-official chaplain of the Solidarity movement, and was praised by Pope John Paul II.

Tischner was involved in politics, he supported the Liberal Democratic Congress, then was a member of the program council of the Freedom Union.

Tischner, in The Decline of Thomistic Christianity (1970), challenged the philosophical primacy of Thomism, accusing it of closing philosophy in one right direction and thus obscuring Revelation.

In articles collected in the books Unhappy Gift of Freedom (1993), In the Land of Ill Imagination (1997) and Priest on the Wanderings (1999), he expressed his views on the issue of building a new social, political and ethical order.