The forced resignation on Sunday of Poland's Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus adds him to a not-insignificant list of high-profile victims of the glut of secret police file opening that has gradually swept the states of central and eastern Europe since the fall of communism. Indeed the Poles, Bulgarians, and Romanians have taken longer than most to begin the process of what they know as "lustration", or vetting of public figures for their past collaboration with communist authorities. East Germany and the Czech Republic were the first and most vigorous.
There were always "good" reasons not to open the files. They were compiled by pervasive security services whose unscrupulous blackmail of their own citizens forced many against their will to spy on neighbours, friends and relatives. The files are inaccurate, it was argued, and reconciliation is not helped by witch-hunts.
Jan Kavan, a former Czech dissident who went on to become foreign minister, fought hard and long, ultimately successfully, to clear his name, a victim of overzealous agents anxious to impress their bosses with reports on a supposedly co-operative contact. Lech Walesa, who became Poland's president, has been battling collaboration accusations since he led the Solidarity trade union in the 1980s. Jozef Olesky was forced to resign as Polish prime minister in 1995 due to allegations he was an informer for the Russian intelligence. Lithuanian ex-president Rolandas Paksa was removed from office by parliament over similar claims.
Church figures have likewise been far from immune - some 10 per cent of Poland's priests are said to have collaborated with the communist authorities. The head of Romania's Orthodox Church, Teoctist, and Hungary's Cardinal Laszlo Paska have both been forced to deny working for the state.
Unfortunately for many dissidents, the very fact of their dissent was likely, as Kavan found, to attract the attention of filemakers. In Wielgus's case it was a desire to travel abroad that gave them leverage. And although he warned the Vatican in advance of his enthronement as archbishop somewhat halfheartedly of "being entangled in contacts with the secret services of past times", Rome appears not even to have asked for the files.
There was an inevitability to his departure that he and the Vatican seem not to have perceived until far too late. Polls were showing 60 per cent public support for a resignation after a 68-page file exposed a 20-year collaboration with the secret police. The degree of that collaboration is still in doubt as the files have been stripped of much material. But the wounds of that brutal time are still too raw for there to have been any other result.