The Wielgus affair

Eyebrows will be raised by the news that Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus has withdrawn a statement signed by him on January 5, two days before his resignation as Warsaw’s archbishop over allegations that he had been a spy for Poland’s communist secret police, the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (SB), for more than two decades.

In the statement, issued by the Polish bishops conference, Archbishop Wielgus confessed that he had cooperated with the secret police, and apologised for previously publicly denying his collaboration.

Now Archbishop Wielgus lawyers are suggesting that the apology made effectively for fudging the truth were added to the statement without the archbishop’s consent or knowledge. Are they suggesting that members of the bishops conference issued a statement in Archbishop Wielgus name that did not reflect his position?

Whether or not Archbishop Wielgus was a spy, and under what complex circumstances his relationship with the SB functioned, should not in itself determine his reputation today. Our faith emphasises repentance and forgiveness. If Archbishop Wielgus did indeed collaborate with the secret police, and now regretted this and sought forgiveness from those potentially harmed by his actions, few Catholics would wish to see forgiveness denied.

The scandal rests not in Archbishop Wielgus alleged past; it rests with events over the past few weeks.

Investigations by Poland’s National Institute of Remembrance and by a Church commission found that the allegations made against Archbishop Wielgus by the right-wing newspaper Gazeta Polska were not groundless.

Archbishop Wielgus now disclaims the statement signed by him, and claims that the files detailing his spy activities were falsified.

Both sides cannot be right.

As we report this week, the archbishop’s lawyers claim that there was neither secret nor conscious collaboration. This is a remarkable statement which does little to establish clarity.

If there was no secret or conscious collaboration, what are we to make of Cardinal Jozef Glemp statement in defence of his successor: Archbishop Wielgus was forced to collaborate under threats and verbal attacks?

Archbishop Wielgus is well within his rights to take legal action to clear his name, as he has said he would. If he is innocent of the spying allegations, then this must be publicly ratified. We must trust that the truth will be established in the Polish court hearing Archbishop Wielgus case.

Pope Benedict, who reportedly backed the archbishop’s resignation, has already absolved Archbishop Wielgus, to whom he wrote: I am fully aware of the exceptional circumstances in which you had to undertake your service, when the communist regime in Poland used all possible means to suffocate the freedom of citizens, and particularly of the clergy. In other words, even if he was a collaborator with the secret police, Archbishop Wielgus was a victim of circumstance.

Whatever the outcome of Archbishop Wielgus bid to clear his name, however, the affair has already damaged the good name of the episcopal office not because of the spy allegations, but because the prevarications and inconsistencies that have surrounded them. The Church cannot profit either way.

At a time when lay Catholics increasingly regard the leadership of bishops as incidental to their faith (other than in their pastoral capacity), public spectacles such as the Wielgus saga serve to undermine the moral authority of the Catholic episcopate. And this is a most unwelcome consequence.