Polish bishops criticize priest's book on clergy links to communists

Published: 2007-03-05

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- Polish church leaders have criticized a priest's book that examines clergy links with communist secret police in Poland. "It shows a worrying lack of concern for humanist principles," Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin told Poland's Catholic information agency, KAI. "I fear God will deal severely with those who've created such a sensation, treating secret police notes as a fount of truth which needn't even be contrasted with other sources." Archbishop Damian Zimon of Katowice said in a March 1 statement that the book "tendentiously selected" secret police material "with the aim not of seeking truth but of impugning the good name" of Bishop Wiktor Skworc of Tarnow, who was accused of collaborating with communists in the book. Archbishop Zimon said he had instructed Bishop Skworc to meet with the secret police to "defuse social tensions" in southern Poland. He added that the book's author, Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, had "no formal or moral right" to investigate priests outside of the priest's the Archdiocese of Krakow. The book, called "Priests in the Face of the Security Service," was released Feb. 28 by the Catholic Znak Publishing House and is based on Father Isakowicz-Zaleski's 18 months of archive analysis.

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