“Why has a new drama been added to the greatest drama of the last war in the innocent deaths of our nation’s political and religious elites?” he asked. “We can expect the causes of this tragic accident to be explained directly in the future. But the wider question will no doubt stay unanswered, along with the pain and sadness not just of close families but also of all Poles.”

The plane carrying Kaczynski, top government and military officials and religious leaders crashed in heavy fog April 10 while attempting to land at the Russian airport of Smolensk. The plane was carrying a delegation that was to attend a ceremony commemorating the Katyn Forest massacre, a Soviet massacre of more than 20,000 members of Poland’s elite officer corps 70 years ago.

The other passengers included the first lady, the head of the Polish central bank, the deputy foreign minister, heads of the Polish navy and air forces, the army chief of staff and nine clergy, including the Catholic archbishop who heads the country’s military archdiocese.

Muszynski said the president had given an “eloquent testimony of endeavour and care throughout his life for faithfulness to Christ and history.”

“He knew the one whom he trusted and the one who was his hope was greater than the lure of despair and death,” Muszynski said. “He certainly thought about his worldly political plans. But he was also aware that he was not master of life and death, and that someone else was directing the fate of peoples and nations.

“Everything great and lasting in life is built with effort, labour and sacrifice. This tragic accident at Smolensk is a dramatic summons to all of us to help build a fuller community both at a national level and with our immediate neighbours, so that the sacrifice of those who have died will not be in vain,” the archbishop said.

Archbishop Tadeusz Ploski, Poland’s military archbishop who held the rank of division general, was among nine clergy victims. Others included Orthodox Archbishop Miron Chodakowski, who headed the Polish Orthodox military chaplaincy, as well as the rector of Warsaw’s Cardinal Wyszynski University, Fr. Ryszard Rumianek. The president’s chaplain, Msgr. Roman Indrzejczyk, and the chaplain of Poland’s Katyn Families Association, Msgr. Zdzislaw Krol, also were killed.

In an April 10 message, Pope Benedict XVI told Poland’s acting head of state, parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski, that he had received the news with “deep pain.”

“I entrust all the victims of this dramatic accident — parliamentarians, politicians, military representatives and families of Katyn, as well as all the others — to the goodness of the merciful God. May He welcome them into His glory,” he said in the telegram.

Cardinal Jozef Glemp, retired archbishop of Warsaw, and the Vatican’s nuncio, Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, concelebrated a Mass in Warsaw’s military cathedral April 11 and led prayers over the president’s coffin at Warsaw’s military airport.