Jerzy Surdykowski: This world is strange. Everything pales in comparison to what's happening in Gaza.

In a pastoral letter read on Sunday, July 20, in churches of the Archdiocese of Łódź, Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś appeals for a Christian attitude toward refugees and migrants , for a "conversion of the language" we use to describe them, because "every person has the right to choose a place to live and has the right to be respected in that place for their beliefs, culture, language, and faith." It's true, I support the Cardinal and his language of mercy, but I oppose the hateful nonsense shouted at anti-immigrant demonstrations .

It's a shame that such hysteria has gripped a country where, just 45 or 40 years ago, masses of citizens fled poverty and political repression, yet were welcomed with dignity in both Western Europe and overseas. A country where, three years ago, we opened our homes and hearts to refugees from Ukraine, and today we consider them intruders.

An Ethiopian or Afghan trying to get to Poland through Belarus is not a refugee seeking a better life here

But the problem is more complicated than it is seen by the advocates of evangelical brotherhood and, on the other hand, by those who consider every migrant a bandit ready to kill and rape.

An Ethiopian or Afghan trying to reach Poland through Belarus isn't a refugee seeking a better life here. Initially, he was lured by tales of a European paradise awaiting those like him, ready to support them with generous aid. Of course, there are troublemakers who fuel such tales, and likely take money for it. When he scraped together his savings and arrived in Minsk or Grodno on Belarusian soil, he ceased to be a refugee, ceased to be even a human being; he became a missile in Lukashenko's, or rather Putin's, hybrid war against NATO. He doesn't know it yet, but he will quickly and painfully learn it when he stands at the border, herded by thugs in uniforms ready for anything. Should we—out of Christian mercy—let him into Poland, feed him, clothe him, and provide him with a decent life?

Israelis are starving and shelling two million Palestinians. And who are these people to Hamas?

All of this pales in comparison to what's happening in Gaza. The Israelis are starving and shelling two million Palestinians , hoping that other Arab states will take them away, or at least that this desperate mob will destroy the remnants of Hamas with their bare hands, because someone is still holding the last Jewish hostages in the remains of the tunnels that survived the Israeli bombardment.

And who are the people for Hamas, which first sent a force of murderers and suicide bombers into Israel and then hid behind the crowd? We tell tales of prisoners once tied to siege engines, but what kind of world do we live in today, what kind of world do we accept?