Vatican missteps on Warsaw

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 10, 2007

Over on the excellent First Things blog, Robert Miller analyzes the Wielgus debacle, giving special attention to the role of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re and the Congregation for Bishops, which vetted the Warsaw appointment. He reaches this conclusion-- which, when you follow his argument, seems inescapable:

Now, either the Vatican knew about Wielgus’ past when it appointed him, as Wielgus says and as the Vatican’s statement in December strongly suggests, or else it did not, as Re now maintains. If the former, then the Vatican’s investigation of Wielgus prior to the appointment was grossly negligent, failing to discover information that was readily available in Poland. If the latter, as seems much more likely, then the Holy See exercised very poor judgment in making the appointment in the first place and even worse judgment in attempting to ram it through even after the truth about Wielgus became public.