Tough week for Polish Church

The fallout from the resignation of Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus continued, with revelations about his role as an informant for former secret police, warnings about new disclosures to come and the resignation of another leading churchman in Krakow.

Last Sunday the news broke that Pope Benedict XVI accepted Archbishop Wielgus' resignation just two days after he became Archbishop of Warsaw. The debacle was played out in public, crowned by the painfully embarrassing "installation" Mass on Sunday that turned into a resignation Mass. It was the first time anyone could remember that an archbishop was sent home on the day of his scheduled installation, an "emeritus" after only two days in office.

Archbishop Wielgus became the highest-ranking Church leader to admit that he agreed to spy for the former Polish Communist regime, raising suspicions about the rest of the hierarchy in the eyes of the simple faithful. To many, the archbishop's qualifier that he "never inflicted any harm on anyone" seemed disingenuous.

Pope Benedict was drawn directly into the controversy. A Vatican statement on December 21 expressed the Pope's "full trust" in Archbishop Wielgus and "full awareness" of his past. But sources now say it appears the archbishop had not told the Pope everything - that he had admitted contacts with the secret police, but not that he had agreed to collaborate in a spying effort.

Meanwhile, a former Polish aide to Pope John Paul II, Fr Adam Boniecki, said whoever had "disinformed" Pope Benedict about Archbishop Wielgus should suffer the consequences. He hinted at people in Poland and at the Vatican.

Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, former secretary of the Polish bishops' conference, said Archbishop Wielgus has a responsibility for "having lied to the Pope and then having said the Pope was informed about everything, and having continued until the day he took office to deny that he agreed to collaborate or that he carried out the collaboration."

Bishop Pieronek, interviewed by Corriere della Sera, said there was no doubt that people opposed to the Church would continue to use the archival information from the communist era to attack the Church. But he said the Church has its own duty to admit past mistakes and publish the relevant material.

Then one day later, last Monday, Fr Janusz Bielanski resigned as rector of Krakow's Wawel Cathedral, the burial place of Poland's kings and queens and a landmark of Church history. He too had been accused of co-operating with the Communist-era secret police.

It could very well transpire that more such accusations will surface and that co-operation with the former Communist leaders by some Church members will be the cross that the Church in Poland has to bear in the coming years. One should remember the courage shown by the majority of priests and members of the hierarchy under the Communist regime. Pope John Paul II is one such example. This scandal can become for the Church in Poland what the child abuse scandal has been for the Church in the US.