On Sunday 5 November the bishop of Tarnow, Wiktor Skworc, spoke to his congregation as follows: “No sins against the Church or against man weigh on my conscience. I can look everyone firmly in the eye””. The bishop said he had always served the Church “with devotion and fidelity” and had only learnt a few months ago that he could be accused of collaboration with the secret services of the Communist regime in Poland. The compromising data regarding him are contained in a confidential folder in which the bishop is described under the pseudonym “Dabrowski” as a collaborator of the totalitarian regime. The Commission of historians that has examined the papers in the file has established however that the bishop did not furnish any information to the secret services that would have compromised the then bishop of the diocese of Katowice (where he was then working), nor any other churchmen. Skworc was forced to have contacts with the secret police because he had been falsely accused of the illegal sale of foodstuffs on the black market. The affair of the bishop of Tarnow forms part of the painful process of controls conducted in Poland over the last two years to ascertain the identity of possible collaborators and victims of the Communist secret services. The totalitarian regime, by blackmail and false promises, if not by violence and fear, sought to infiltrate all social classes, including the Church. Today these events are being disinterred from the archives, causing deep emotion in public opinion and raising with them many other doubts and questions marks. The problem of the collaboration of some priests with the secret police is now the object of lively debate and of studies conducted at the national level and in various dioceses, including that of Krakow.
