American Buddhist Net

By Katarzyna Klimasinska

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Stanislaw Wielgus, the metropolitan archbishop of Warsaw, resigned today to applause and shouting at a special Mass meant to install him to the post, having confessed he collaborated with the secret service during communist rule in Poland.

Wielgus appeared to fight back tears as he made the announcement in Warsaw Cathedral to shouts of ``no'' and ``stay with us.'' Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation, according to a statement half an hour earlier from the Vatican's mission in Poland.

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The archbishop said yesterday he talked with Poland's secret police in the communist era out of a lack of ``prudence, courage and determination,'' and because he had wanted to continue his academic studies. He denied being a spy.

``It's one case to pastor the flock when they listen and it's another when they feel aversion,'' said Cardinal Jozef Glemp, Wielgus's predecessor, at the ceremony. ``The Church took this fact into consideration.''

More than half of Poles were against Wielgus's nomination after learning about his collaboration with the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa secret police, according to a survey of 1,024 Poles conducted yesterday for TVN.

``The attitude of Archbishop Wielgus during the past years of communist regime hurt his authority,'' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement on the Vatican Radio Web site today. ``That's why, despite his humble and moving request for mercy, the resignation from the service in Warsaw and its fast acceptance by the Holy Father seemed the right solution.''

Public Pressure

This may be the first time public opinion has pressed the Polish church to change a decision, said Jacek Kucharczyk, a sociologist at Poland's Institute of Public Affairs, in an interview for the TVN24 private news channel.

Poland's secret service was created to fight opposition to the communist regime. It was scrapped when communism was overthrown in Poland in 1989, as the main enemy of the democratic state.

Wielgus was in contact with the secret police for more than 20 years. He started cooperating in 1967, while studying the history of philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin, and informed on Polish clergy and scholars, Rzeczpospolita newspaper reported on Jan. 4, citing documents collected by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance.

``Today, a trial of Archbishop Wielgus took place. What kind of trial was it? Based on bits of papers, copies of copies of some documents,'' Cardinal Glemp said during the ceremony. ``We don't want such trials.''

Cardinal Glemp will return to the post of archbishop of Warsaw ``until further decisions are made,'' according to a statement from Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, the Vatican's nuncio in Poland, which was published on the Polish diocese's Web site.

`Revenge'

The Vatican said the attacks on the Polish church may be an attempt at ``revenge'' by ``those who once persecuted the Church, but were conquered by the Polish nation's desire for faith and freedom.''

The Wielgus case is not likely to be the last such attack on Church officials, based on similar secret police documents, the Vatican said in today's statement.

President Lech Kaczynski, attending the cathedral ceremony, clapped after Wielgus announced his resignation.

Evidence

Andrzej Paczkowski, a Polish historian who was asked by the nation's human rights ombudsman to investigate allegations Wielgus was a spy, said on Jan. 4 there was evidence he did have such a role in the 1970s. Poland's Catholic Church Historical Commission on Jan. 5 also said the archbishop had cooperated with the secret services prior to the collapse of communism.

The Vatican, in a statement last month, said it took ``all of the circumstances'' of Wielgus's ``life, including those regarding his past'' into consideration when it appointed him to his new post.

The Pope made no comment on the resignation when addressing Polish pilgrims in their language during his speech today from a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square in Rome.

``I place my resignation from the post of metropolitan archbishop of Warsaw in Your Holiness's hands,'' Wielgus said at the cathedral in Warsaw, visibly shaking.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katarzyna Klimasinska in Warsaw at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 7, 2007 10:53 EST