Polish Hierarchy Condemn Book

Polish church leaders have criticized a priest's book that examines clergy links with communist secret police in Poland.

"It shows a worrying lack of concern for humanist principles," Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin told Poland's Catholic information agency, KAI.

"I fear God will deal severely with those who've created such a sensation, treating secret police notes as a fount of truth which needn't even be contrasted with other sources."

Archbishop Damian Zimon of Katowice said in a March 1 statement that the book Priests in the Face of the Security Service, "tendentiously selected" secret police material "with the aim not of seeking truth but of impugning the good name" of Bishop Wiktor Skworc of Tarnow, who was accused of collaborating with communists in the book.

Archbishop Zimon said he had instructed Bishop Skworc to meet with the secret police to "defuse social tensions" in southern Poland.

He added that the book's author, Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, had "no formal or moral right" to investigate priests outside of the priest's the Archdiocese of Krakow.

The book, released Feb. 28 by the Catholic Znak Publishing House, is based on Father Isakowicz-Zaleski's 18 months of archive analysis.

The book names several dozen priests as suspected former secret police collaborators, and says several bishops were registered as collaborators, including Archbishop Wojciech Ziemba of Warmia.

Father Isakowicz-Zaleski said at the book's launch in Krakow that he believed the Polish church had "emerged victorious in its struggle with communism," but still had to confront the "Trojan horse" of the secret police archives.

He said church leaders had been reluctant to study material about the past because they feared further revelations. He added that the church's image would be "damaged by hiding the truth, not by revealing it."

Father Isakowicz-Zaleski, who was harassed by regime agents, was permitted access in 2005 as an "injured party" to the archives housed at Poland's official National Remembrance Institute.

However, in June 2006 Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow warned him to stop "throwing accusations," and in October 2006 the cardinal barred him from more research and public statements.

Father Isakowicz-Zaleski said he had been "condemned to civil death" by Cardinal Dziwisz's October decree and said that he was prepared for legal action.

Cardinal Dziwisz said in a Feb. 28 statement that he had asked an archdiocesan commission to investigate whether the book conformed with church guidelines.

Most of Poland's 44 dioceses have set up commissions to investigate the communist-era role of clergy since the January resignation of Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus of Warsaw, although some Catholics have criticized the church control over the new bodies, which are staffed by clergy.

The book describes how the secret police attempted over the course of 12 years to recruit Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz, who the pope named archbishop of Warsaw March 3, as an informer but gave up in the face of his refusals.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Disclaimer

No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.

The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce