Advertise in this spot on CatholicCulture.org. View all ads.

Catholic World News News Feature

Polish bishops probe for Communist collaborators March 01, 2006

Church leaders in Poland are launching an investigation into the possibility that some clerics cooperated with the secret police during the Communist era.

"The issue simply has to be investigated," Father Robert Necek, a spokesman for the Krakow archdiocese, told the Associated Press. Investigators will look through the archives of the secret police for evidence of collaboration.

The investigation was begun by Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow. The archbishop-- recently named by Pope Benedict for elevation to the College of Cardinals later this month-- was the longtime personal secretary to Pope John Paul II, both at the Vatican and earlier in Krakow. The late Pontiff was acutely aware of the likelihood that he was being watched by government agents, Vatican officials have indicated.

In 2005 the Polish Church was shaken by public charges that a priest serving in Rome, Father Konrad Hejmo, was on the payroll of the secret police during the 1980s. In protesting his innocence, Father Hejmo told reporters that many Polish priests probably were used as sources of information for the Communist government "without knowing it." He recalled that particularly in the early years of John Paul's pontificate, "every Polish priest was under surveillance." During a luncheon that the late Pope held for Polish priests in Rome in 1984, he said, many clerics spoke about their belief that they were being watched by government agents, and the Pope acknowledged that reality. "He knew he was being spied on," Father Hejmo said.