AsiaNews on the Vatican Press Office statement on the affair:
The resignation of Mgr Stanislaw Wielgus from his new post as archbishop of Warsaw is an “adequate solution” to the “confusion” created in Poland by accusations about his past collaboration with the secret services of the regime. But the resignation is also a new phase in the “war” declared against the Polish Church by a “strange alliance” that unites one-time Communists and “other adversaries” that could be the nationalists.
This was the gist of a statement released yesterday by the director of the Vatican press office, Fr Federico Lombardi, about the resignation of Mgr Wielgus whose “conduct in past years during the communist regime in Poland gravely compromised his authority, also towards the faithful”. However there is more to what happened than a mere personal episode that sparked “confusion” among the faithful and that was concluded – at least for now. A wider issue is at stake here that regards the entire Polish church. “The case of Mgr Wieglus is not the first and probably not the last case of an attack against a church official based on documentation from the services of the past regime,” said Fr Lombardi. “There is endless material and in seeking to assess its value and to draw credible conclusions, we must not forget that this is a product of officials from an oppressive and blackmailing regime.”
Cardinal Joseph Glemp in Warsaw was tougher and more explicit. “Wieglus was judged on the basis of copies of copies of pieces of paper,” said Cardinal Glemp, referring to papers published in the media that were found at the Institute of National Memory (IPN) that has the archives of the secret police. Warmly applauded by the faithful present in Warsaw Cathedral, the cardinal continued: “We do not like such trials because they are not real. So it is difficult for us to take the IPN seriously today. It is too difficult and too dirty.” In a nutshell, “to understand the past, it is not enough just to know about the documents in their possession.”
Going by the criticisms made by Cardinal Glemp, the references made by Fr Lombardi in the rest of his statement become clearer: “Many years after the end of the communist regime, now that the great and unassailable figure of John Paul II has gone, the wave of attacks against the Catholic Church in Poland, rather than a sincere quest for transparency and truth, has many aspects of a strange alliance between the persecutors of the past and its other adversaries and a vendetta on the part of those who had persecuted it in the past and were defeated by faith and the desire for freedom of the Polish people.”
Weigel said this material is drawn from more than 100 miles of documents from the security forces which have long been available to scholars and researchers, and that "responsible" scholars from Poland’s Institute of National Memory, charged with studying the material, "some of whom are very serious Catholics," had warned that the Wielgus appointment would be a problem.
"This was all avoidable," Weigel said.
The Vatican did not know the former Warsaw archbishop had spied for Poland’s former communist regime when Pope Benedict nominated him last month, a senior cardinal was quoted as saying on Monday.
Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus resigned on Sunday after admitting to collaborating with Poland’s communist secret police — conduct that the Vatican’s top spokesman acknowledged on Sunday had "gravely compromised his authority."
Benedict had defended Wielgus in the face of a rising tide of allegations, and the Vatican sent out a statement last month saying it had taken his past into account when it elevated the former bishop of Plock to the prestigious post.
But Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who heads the Congregation for Bishops, the powerful department which decides the future careers of aspiring churchmen, said that the Vatican did not know the truth about Wielgus.
"When Monsignor Wielgus was nominated, we did not know anything about his collaboration with the secret services," Battista Re was quoted as saying in Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, without naming sources, said the Pope only received an 80-page fax about Wielgus’ spying on Saturday evening. The fax was sent by the Polish government and translated into Benedict’s native language, German.
The scandal has been a major embarrassment for the Pontiff, who last year visited Poland, paying tribute to his Polish-born predecessor John Paul II — widely credited with helping hasten the fall of the communist regime there.
The Vatican on Sunday accused the Polish Church’s opponents of vindictively dragging up Wielgus’s past. Spokesman Federico Lombardi blamed a "strange alliance between the persecutors of the past and their adversaries" for a "wave of attacks."
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