VATICAN CITY/POLAND:The furore over collaboration between Polish priests and the communist-era authorities may damage attempts to make former pope John Paul II a saint, the late pontiff's private secretary said.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was John Paul's closest aide during his 27-year papacy, said Poles risked "devouring" each other and he attacked excessive media speculation about the spying issue.
"Such activities are highly harmful to the good name of the church and of Poland in the international arena," he said.
"Everything is allegedly being done for the sake of truth. I ask: 'What truth?' Even if someone has some offence on their conscience, who has got the right to denounce them and for what purpose?" he asked.
On Saturday, Pope Benedict named Kazimierz Nycz archbishop of Warsaw to replace Stanislaw Wielgus, who resigned in January after admitting he had contacts with the communist-era intelligence services. He claims he was blackmailed and harassed into collaborating.
Some Poles say a witch hunt is under way and people are being falsely accused. Others say Poland cannot become a fully functioning democracy until it examines its past unflinchingly.
Cardinal Dziwisz defended another archbishop, Henryk Nowakowski, against media accusations that had been a collaborator and even spied on the late pope.
"This creates the image of a pope surrounded by spies and that is a lie and slander," Dziwisz said. "I therefore ask: 'who is responsible for such harm before God and history?' This is also a way of harming the sainthood process [ of John Paul]," he said.
The campaign to beatify John Paul is under way in Rome and in Krakow, the Polish city where he served before his election in 1978.
Poland's National Remembrance Institute (IPN), which is studying communist-era secret services files, says 90 per cent of the clergy did not collaborate with the regime. - (Reuters)