Polish archbishop suggests monument to honor former president
August 18, 2010
A Polish archbishop has decried the continued public controversy over a memorial for the late President Lech Kaczynski, while adding that a plaque recently unveiled on the wall of the presidential palace is “not enough” to honor the leader’s memory.
Archbishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz of Gdansk spoke out after a protester threw feces on the new plaque in a protest. The protester was arrested, and could face a 5-year prison term for defacing a national monument.
The plaque was unveiled as a compromise, after supporters of Kaczynski angrily protested the government’s plan to remove a cross that had been erected in front of the presidential palace in memory of the late president and others who died in an April 10 plane crash. “Lech Kaczynski was one of Poland’s great presidents,” said Archbishop Glodz. “Therefore we should build Kaczynski’s memory.” However, he denounced the ugly public conflicts over the memorial cross and the plaque. These highly politicized disputes, he said accomplished nothing but the “devaluation of the events and people.”
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