By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com In Warsaw, Poland
Published: 14:29 EST, 22 February 2023 | Updated: 15:34 EST, 22 February 2023
President Joe Biden marked Ash Wednesday by participating in a private mass at his Warsaw hotel with a Polish priest who spent six months in prison for being involved in the anti-communist underground.
Father Wiesław Dawidowski gave Biden mass at the downtown Marriott hotel where the president was staying, sharing photos on his Facebook page that showed a makeshift altar adorned with a wooden cross and two candles.
'Today is Ash Wednesday. Even the most powerful in this world take ashes - if they belong to the Catholic tradition,' Dawidowski wrote on his post. 'I had the honor today of placing ashes on the forehead of the US President Mr. Joe Biden.'
Biden was seen with a smudge on his forehead during his meeting later Wednesday with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, the final item on his schedule before he headed back to the United States after a three-day European trip.
'Everything took place in great secrecy, but now I can speak: in an improvised chapel, next to the President's apartment,' he wrote in Polish. 'We prayed for peace, the conversion of Russia and the light of the Holy Spirit for Mr. President,' Dawidowski added.
The president gifted the priest one of his challenge coins.
Father Wiesław Dawidowski (left) gave President Joe Biden (right) mass at the downtown Marriott hotel in Warsaw, Poland where the president was staying
Dawidowski shared photos on his Facebook page that showed a makeshift altar adorned with a wooden cross and two candles at the downtown Marriott hotel in Warsaw, Poland
Biden presented Dawidowski with one of his challenge coin as a souvenir from the special Ash Wednesday service
Dawidowski was jailed for his activism in the early 1980s, when Poland was still under communist rule.
He recalled in a 2010 interview that he started a hunger strike over the conditions women were facing in the prison.
More recently, Dawidowski served as the Christian co-chair for the organization, the Polish Council of Christians and Jews.
He's also been a journalist and TV anchor for Catholic media outlets.
Biden is the country's second Catholic president and regularly attends mass.
He also spent time talking with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday about a meeting he had as a young senator with Pope John Paul II, the world's first Polish pope.
Biden was later seen with an Ash Wednesday smudge on his forehead during his afternoon meetings with the Bucharest Nine leaders in Warsaw, Poland
'I wrote a report saying that Poland would be free within a matter of a year,' Biden said, also mentioning Poland's former communist government. 'And my chief of staff then said, "Please don't write that because you're going to look foolish."'
Biden said he got a call from Pope John Paul, who served in the role from 1978 until his death in 2005, asking to meet. Poland's communist government dissolved in 1989, transitioning into a democratic state.
'And as a practicing Catholic, I joked with him that he was more conservative than my views were. And I went to see him, and we finished the conversation, and it was all about Poland,' the president recalled. 'He never once mentioned anything about Catholicism.'
Biden also vividly remembered what the late pope said to him as they posed for a photograph in the Papal Library.
'And he put his hand under my arm, and he said, "Senator, remember, today I spoke to you as a Pole - a proud Pole. Not as your Pope, as a Pole,' Biden said. 'So, I realized the power of Poland all across the board.'