Publish or perish? Church struggles to judge communist collaborators

Published: 2007-01-12

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The resignation of a Polish archbishop over spying revelations has highlighted a tension between judgment and forgiveness in the church, one that has taken on new meaning in post-communist Europe. In the broadest sense, it's a tension found in the teaching of Christ, who preached forgiveness but told his followers to "judge justly" the wrongs of society. The question emerged in a more specific way during Holy Year 2000. As the church began an "examination of conscience" to ask forgiveness for historical sins, cardinals vehemently debated whether it was proper to judge past actions like the Inquisition or the Crusades by modern standards. In today's Poland, the timeline has been abbreviated. The alleged spying activities involve living people and living memories, many of them documented in immense archives. The church has quietly struggled over whether to examine such files and publish the findings, aware that the disclosures may damage the church. Now that Warsaw Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus has resigned after it was learned he was an informant to the communist-era secret police, the church may have no choice but to make full disclosure.

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