Combat sports and martial arts and the roman-catholic church (a historical perspective)

In 2003 the University of Rzeszow Press published a collection of essays entitled The Humanistic Theory of Combat Sports and Martial Arts. Concepts and Problems (eds. Wojciech Cynarski and Kazimierz Obodynski) in which a report on the life and activity of Father Miroslaw Surgala, one of the priests who excelled themselves in Far East sports and martial arts was placed. In 1998, Father M. Surgala, as one of the team members, took the first place in the Team European Championships in Judo-Sport that were held in Antwerp, Belgium. Father Surgala spent his youth in Przelajka, a site placed in the outskirts of Siemianowice. He also learned karate in the Pszczyna Academy of Eastern Martial Arts (his coach and teacher being Jan Jasiewicz). Later, he worked with would-be detectives in a Jastrzebie-located Detective School, where he was employed as a teacher. It seems quite possible that there are many more young priests of the type of Father Surgala (i.e. that practice sports and martial arts) in Poland, what may evidence our proposition that it is also priests who are compelled to excel themselves in various self-defense techniques so as to defend themselves from unexpected attacks of incidentally met hooligans. Generally approved ideas and practical issues of sport, accepted by all currents and suggestions born on the grounds of affirmation of progressive and universal directions of development of human culture, additionally strengthen the ideas found in various sports and martial arts. In this way they become more and more popular also within the spheres of public activity of modern Roman Catholic Church.