Polish leaders express praise for new head of Warsaw Archdiocese

Published: 2007-03-05

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Two months after Pope Benedict XVI's first choice as archbishop of Warsaw, Poland, resigned amid accusations of collaborating with communists, the pope named a 57-year-old bishop to take the post. Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz, who had been bishop of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg, was named archbishop of Warsaw March 3. Newspapers have published quotations from the file that communist Poland's secret police kept on the cleric, saying that he repeatedly had refused to cooperate. A Polish priest's new book describes how the secret police attempted over the course of 12 years to recruit Archbishop Nycz as an informer but gave up in the face of his refusals. Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus was named archbishop of Warsaw in December, but resigned during his installation Mass Jan. 7 after two separate commissions said they had seen signed documents indicating he had "deliberately and secretly collaborated" with Poland's secret police. In an interview with Vatican Radio March 4, Archbishop Nycz said that from the time he was named bishop of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg in 2004 he "was convinced that the entire past -- mine, that of the priests and of the entire church -- had to be faced, because the past of the Polish church is heroic."

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .