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Warsaw archbishop quits
07/01/2007 14:38 - (SA)
Warsaw - Warsaw's new archbishop has resigned in a scandal over his involvement with the communist-era secret police, Poland's Roman Catholic church said on Sunday.
Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, who took the office on Friday and was to have been formally installed in a ceremony on Sunday, "has submitted his resignation from the office of archbishop of Warsaw," Poland's Episcopate said in a statement released only half an hour before the Mass was to begin.
Revelations that Wielgus had contacts with the hated secret police of the communist regime, which ended in 1989, have shaken the deeply Catholic homeland of the late Pope John Paul II, where many view the church as a moral authority that bravely opposed the regime.
The case, which had simmered since mid-December, expanded into a full-blown crisis on Friday when a church historical commission said it had found evidence that Wielgus had cooperated with the communist-era secret police.
Wielgus initially denied that, but then issued two statements acknowledging that he did sign an agreement in 1978 promising to cooperate with the security force in exchange for permission to leave Poland to study in West Germany.
'He only hurt himself'
However, he stressed that he did not inform on anyone or try to hurt anyone, and he expressed remorse for both his contacts with the secret police and his failure to be forthcoming from the beginning.
The church said Pope Benedict XVI has asked the outgoing archbishop, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, to administer the archdiocese until a replacement is found.
Wielgus, previously bishop of Plock, was named on December 6 to replace Glemp, who stepped down after more than 25 years as archbishop of Warsaw.
In place of Wielgus' installation, a Mass was going ahead at Warsaw's St. John's Cathedral to thank Glemp - who remains Poland's primate - for guiding the church for decades. President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, attended the service.
A mass of people pressed around the entrance of the church, many apparently still unaware that Wielgus had resigned.
One woman, Jadwiga Lachowska, 64, said she still had full trust in Wielgus and saw no reason for him to step down.
"Why should he? He didn't harm anyone. He didn't inform on anyone - he only hurt himself," she said.
The Vatican released a translated version of the statement from the Polish church, and Vatican deputy spokesperson Reverend Ciro Benedettini said it would have no comment beyond that.
- AP
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