Polish military bishop suspends chaplain who accused soldiers

Published: 2004-09-14

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- The head of Poland's military diocese suspended a senior naval chaplain after the priest accused Polish soldiers of misconduct while under U.S. command in Iraq. "Although this priest witnessed certain facts, he didn't know the orders behind them," said Msgr. Boguslaw Wrona, Catholic dean at Poland's Swinoujscie naval port. Msgr. Wrona said the priest, Father Zbigniew Jaworski, had withdrawn the charges because he had "wrongly interpreted what he saw." Father Jaworski could not be reached for comment. In a Sept. 11 interview with Catholic News Service, Msgr. Wrona said Bishop Slawoj Glodz had suspended Father Jaworski after the Polish government ordered an inquiry into the chaplain's claims that he had witnessed Polish sailors, under U.S. command, plundering an Iranian boat in the Persian Gulf in December 2003. Father Jaworski, a chaplain with Poland's 8th Shore Defense Fleet, made the claim in a paper published in late August from a conference at the Catholic University of Lublin. The priest said he had seen Polish servicemen from the destroyer Admiral Xawery Czernicki robbing a stranded Iranian ship after the Iranian crew had been rescued by an American helicopter.

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