Warsaw Installation Set For April 1st

Warsaw’s Archbishop-elect Kazimierz Nycz will be installed on April 1, the archdiocese has announced.

The archbishop-elect will be installed at a simple ceremony in Warsaw’s Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

He succeeds Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, who resigned just prior to his scheduled installation in January.

The installation of Archbishop Nycz was scheduled quickly in a bid to end a period of chaos in the Warsaw archdiocese, which began when Archbishop Wielgus was accused of collaborating with Communist secret-police agents, and continues with accusations against other clerics in Warsaw and throughout Poland.

Archbishop-elect Nycz has been hailed as one of the clerics who staunchly resisted recruitment efforts by the secret police.

In a related story, a noted Polish theologian and author, Fr Tomasz Weclawski, has announced that he is leaving the priesthood. Fr Weclawski had been serving on the commission that was set up to examine evidence of collaboration by Archbishop Wielgus.

Meanwhile Polish President Lech Kaczynski has said that he opposes a proposed change to the country’s constitution that would defend the life of an unborn child.

“It is not the right time for a change,” Kaczynski declared on March 9, saying that he supports the current laws, allowing abortion only in cases of rape, incest, or a danger to the mother’s life.

That law, he said, represents a prudent compromise to end the internal struggles over abortion that divided Poland a decade ago.

Roman Giertych, the deputy prime minister, generated enormous publicity and widespread outrage last week when he said that European governments should ban abortion.

Giertych later met with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president’s twin brother, amid speculation that he would be asked to resign his cabinet post.

But Giertych was not asked to resign, and told reporters that the prime minister had not told him to back away from his public statement.

In fact, a Polish newspaper had reported that Prime Minister Kaczynski privately voiced his support for the constitutional amendment.

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