Mayhem in the Cathedral

If there are to be no more Wielgus scandals, writes a Polish theologian, Poland's Catholic Church must shine a light into its darkest corners. by Jaroslaw Makowski 26 January 2007
On 7 January, newly-named Roman Catholic Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus was to be ceremonially inaugurated to head the important Warsaw diocese at a lavish mass in Warsaw Cathedral.

What was meant to be a feel-good event bringing the nation's top Catholics and politicians together had already become something of a fiasco, following allegations by the weekly Gazeta Polska of Wielgus' long-standing and willing collaboration with communist secret police. Wielgus at first firmly denied the accusations firmly but eventually admitted to collaboration on 5 January after media published his secret police file in full. Publicly, the Vatican stated its trust in the new archbishop. But on the morning of the ceremony, yielding to mounting pressure from both Polish authorities and the Holy See, Wielgus resigned. He announced his decision during the mass in the packed cathedral, provoking shouts of "No! No!", "Disgrace!" and "Stay with us!" from the crowd.

The Wielgus case ignited an intense debate on the Catholic Church under communism and whether priests who collaborated with the secret police should be punished. Some observers argued that Wielgus' collaboration two or three decades ago was less of a disgrace than his denials and the support he received from some of his fellow bishops. Writing in the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Jaroslaw Makowski, a theologian and a commentator for the left-leaning monthly Krytyka Polityczna, analyzed the uneasy situation the Polish Catholic Church finds itself in.


Alfred Hitchcock could have taken lessons in making horror films from the Catholic Church. But the film innocuously titled “The Enthronement of Archbishop Wielgus” doesn't need a skilful screenplay writer. Life itself has written it.

There's nonstop action and suspense until the very end. And as in any good thriller, a shock finale. On 7 January, a few minutes after 8 a.m., there’s unofficial news from the president’s office – which in itself is surprising – that the enthronement may be cancelled. The church side remains silent. Then, just 15 minutes before the mass, the Apostolic Nunciature confirms: Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus has resigned and the pope has accepted his resignation.

Some believers gave a sigh of relief: “Thank God." Others said: “It’s a scandal!” Is the archbishop’s resignation going to end this thriller, so destructive for the Church?

Unfortunately, no. The row over Wielgus' nomination shows that the crisis that the Polish Catholic Church has found itself in is much deeper than it seems at first glance. Because it is a triple crisis: a crisis of trust, unity, and authority.

THE VATICAN'S TOTTERING MILLS

Archbishop Wielgus resigned under pressure from the Vatican. But earlier, on 21 December, the Holy See declared its trust and full support for him. The decision to dismiss him – just as unprecedented as the one to support him – means that the Vatican has lost its trust in the archbishop.

More than that: in calling for Wielgus to resign one day after he officially became the head of the Warsaw diocese, the pope cast a vote of no confidence in the Polish nuncio, Jozef Kowalczyk, and the entire Polish episcopate. Unofficially, it is claimed that the pope made his decision following the intervention of Polish authorities. This is another dangerous precedent: it turns out that the arguments of the Polish authorities were more credible for Benedict XVI than those of his bishops.

The mistrust that the pope displayed towards the Polish Church hierarchy will cast its shadow on the process of looking for a new head of the Warsaw diocese. The pope knows now that he must be cautious. Can he now trust bishops who were more concerned for their own corporate solidarity than for the good of all believers and the Church? It was explained that the Vatican's wish to find an absolutely clean person was the reason it took several months to name a candidate. The choice fell on Archbishop Wielgus and it soon turned out to be a mistake. How can the pope rely on bishops who let him down? How should he now go about looking for a new man to lead the Warsaw diocese?

Perhaps this crisis of trust will guide the pope to look, not within the circle of bishops, but among ordinary enthusiastic priests with evangelical charisma. The current situation gives him the green light to go against the grain of the church elites. This is also an opportunity to signal the Vatican's approval of a generation change in the Polish episcopate – a change that is much needed.

On the other hand, it is impossible not to ask why the pope decided on the unprecedented move to dismiss Archbishop Wielgus on the day of his enthronement at virtually the very last moment. There were those who said the pope had known of the archbishop's past – for example, Bishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz who, by the way, said he would not attend the enthronement mass; was it a protest against the Pope’s decision? The Vatican itself assured us [that it knew of Wielgus' past]. So why did it not react earlier?

Right-wing commentators claim the pope did not have full knowledge. He did not know the archbishop’s past in detail and did not understand the Polish context well enough. And then there was the capping argument about the Vatican mills grinding slowly.

Such explanations do not seem convincing. They present the pope as if he lived in an ivory tower. But the pope was given the chance to see what emotions the question of lustration evokes in the Polish clergy. That was why he said that “we must guard against the arrogant claim of setting ourselves up to judge earlier generations, who lived in different times and different circumstances” in Warsaw Cathedral during his visit to Poland last year. Can we believe then that he was unaware of the crisis that the revelation of Archbishop Wielgus’ past ignited in our Church? Could he have not known of the extensive coverage the affair was getting in the European press?

GUILTY, OR VICTIM?

Another sign of the crisis is the divide that the archbishop opened in the Polish Church. This was clear in Warsaw Cathedral. When Wielgus announced his resignation, some – like President Lech Kaczynski – were relieved and applauded, but others shouted, “Disgrace! Stay with us!”

What does all this mean? That for believers who support the archbishop, the publication of his file from the Institute of National Remembrance is not an argument to prove his guilt. They still trust him, even though the archbishop himself confirmed the fact of his collaboration with the Security Service [SB]. The question is how to convince these “simple” and pious Catholics that the archbishop’s decision is a good and desirable thing for the Church. Who will explain to them that collaboration with the SB does not disqualify Wielgus as a person but it does so in terms of his leading the Warsaw Church?

The media are not going to do it, because – in the eyes of these people – they “stoned the archbishop.” Perhaps Archbishop Wielgus himself should appeal to the people in order to make them understand his decision. I think too that a personal letter from the pope to the Polish Church, read in churches countrywide, would be a sign of the Vatican's care. Didn’t St. Paul teach in this way, by writing letters to communities of the faithful?

There are divisions as well among the clergy. They are not spectacular, but it can be seen that older priests and part of the hierarchy sympathize with Wielgus. But younger priests are more radical in judgment. In private conversations, they do not hide the grudge they bear against the archbishop, who has made their situation rather difficult. “I forgive the archbishop," one of them told me, "but can a man with such a past be the bishop of Warsaw? It won’t be him who will have to defend the Church against young people’s accusations of deceit and arrogance.” One way or the other, the Church today badly needs unity. Not only to be able to clearly tell the evil from the good, but also to have strength to forgive and reconcile.

THE NEED FOR AUTOLUSTRATION

Is there a person in the Polish Church with enough authority to end divisions and lead the Church out of the crisis?

So far, no one is in sight. Reluctance to change was presented by Cardinal Jozef Glemp, who said during his Sunday homily [on the day Wielgus resigned] – to the applause of some of the believers present – that Wielgus had not been judged fairly. “What kind of judgment was it, based on some documents and shreds of paper photocopied three times over? We do not want such judgments,” Glemp said.

It is understandable that the Church should not agree to undergo lustration at the hands of the media. But if it wants to hold on to its authority as a credible institution that demands the highest values not just from others, but from itself as well, it has to propose an alternative way of lustration.

There is no escaping this. What is more, the Vatican knows it. That is why Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that Wielgus' case "is probably not the last attack on a Church official based on documentation from the [secret] services of the past regime." If the Polish Church wants to avoid new attacks, it must pre-empt them. And it can do this in only one way – by revealing the whole truth.

Polish Catholics are ready to forgive and reconcile if the “traitor” shows repentance. Even the fiercest critics of Archbishop Wielgus declared themselves ready to forgive him if he were to do penance. But believers must be given a chance – and this is not going to happen as long as bishops bury their heads in the sand. Such an attitude can lead to a long-term crisis of trust and credibility. No one who cares for the good of the Church wants that.