POLAND:An embarrassed Vatican said yesterday it had no idea that former Archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, had collaborated with the Polish communist secret service, the SB.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who heads the powerful Congregation for Bishops, suggested that Bishop Wielgus, who resigned on Sunday, misled Pope Benedict ahead of his appointment last month.
"When Msgr Wielgus was nominated, we did not know anything about his collaboration with the secret services," Cardinal Battista was quoted as saying by Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Meanwhile, La Reppublica reported that the pope had received an 80-page fax about Bishop Wielgus's activities on Saturday evening, after he had been consecrated into his new office and hours before his inaugural Mass.
His resignation has shocked and divided Poland, and has put pressure on the country's powerful Catholic Church to investigate fully the activities of the clergy under communist rule.
Polish newspapers across the political spectrum agreed that the consequences will be deep and long-term for the institution.
"The Polish church should perform a full evaluation of its past," said Gazeta Wyborcza. "There always will be people who will use these SB files, whether their contents are true or false."
Polish bishops have fought back, aided by conservative politicians and the fundamentalist Radio Maryja, accusing the media of conducting a witch-hunt against Bishop Wielgus.
"An innocent man was harmed, morally and physically, based on fabricated materials. There is no proof of collaboration," said Radio Maryja listener Teresa Zelichowska.
The SB file of Bishop Wielgus is incomplete but two investigations - one church-led - agreed last week that the evidence available suggested a collaboration of more than 20 years.
Moderate voices within the church suggested yesterday that the weekend events will increase the pace of church investigations.
"I think [ investigations] will happen more dynamically. There is a chance that the problem will be addressed with ever greater seriousness," said Archbishop Jozef Zycinski. "Investigations yes, Chinese cultural revolution, no. With justice must come forgiveness, concern for truth and respect for the human involved."
But the conservative Rzeczpospolita, which headlined the story "Relief from Rome", doubted there would be a change of heart any time soon, saying in an editorial that it was pointless to place hope in "the wisdom of the Polish church or in the healing intervention of Rome . . . In this latest crisis both showed either their slowness or unreliability".
As the Vatican searches for a new archbishop of Warsaw, it emerged yesterday that Bishop Wielgus will remain as a lecturer at the Catholic university in Lublin.