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Polish Archbishop Quits; Over Secret Police Contacts
Topic Started: Jan 7 2007, 05:09 AM (64 Views)
George K
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Finally
Polish Archbishop Quits After Secret Service Contacts

By Katarzyna Klimasinska

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Stanislaw Wielgus, the metropolitan archbishop of Warsaw who has admitted he collaborated with the secret service during communist rule in Poland, resigned hours before he was due to be formally installed in his post.

Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation and asked Cardinal Jozef Glemp, Wielgus's predecessor, to return to his post ``until further decisions are made,'' according to a statement from the Vatican's mission in Poland.

The archbishop said yesterday he had spoken with the secret service in the communist era ``without decent prudence, courage and determination'' not to, as he wanted to continue his academic studies. He denied he was a communist spy.

President Lech Kaczynski, attending the cathedral ceremony in which Wielgus was to have been installed in his new post, clapped after the communist collaborator officially announced his resignation. Some people shouted ``no'' and ``stay with us.''

Today's statement announcing the resignation came half an hour before Wielgus resigned publicly. The statement, from Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, the Vatican's nuncio in Poland, was published on the Polish diocese's Web site.

Andrzej Paczkowski, a Polish historian, was asked by the nation's human rights ombudsman to investigate allegations Wielgus was a spy. Paczkowski on Jan. 4 said there was evidence he did have such a role in the 1970s. Poland's Catholic Church Historical Commission yesterday also said the archbishop had cooperated with the secret services prior to the collapse of communism in 1989.

The Vatican, in a statement last month, said it took ``all of the circumstances'' of Wielgus's ``life, including those regarding his past'' into consideration when it appointed him to his new post.
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