Faced by the truth

“The Church in Poland has always shared the thoughts of the nation, just as she has always shared its destiny, even in the darkest hours of our history. The cases of weakness and infidelity of some of her members, even amongst the clergy, brought to light after so many years, cannot alter that. May the present time be for all of us an occasion for repentance and reconciliation, to restore the justice that has been violated and to regain mutual trust and hope”: that is the earnest hope expressed by the Polish bishops in their letter to the faithful, read out in all churches on Sunday 14 January and drafted after an extraordinary session of the permanent Council of the episcopate and diocesan bishops, on 12 January. “We wish that Ash Wednesday, on 21 February, may be a day of prayer and repentance for all priests in Poland. We wish prayers to Divine Mercy to be recited in all the churches of our dioceses, asking for forgiveness for errors committed and weakness shown in the proclamation of the Gospel in its entirety. We priests come from the people, we are part of Polish society, which as a whole needs to turn its back on evil in the fullness of conversion”. “WILLING TO BE VETTED”. “The Polish bishops wish the truth that concerns them and that involves all churchmen to be fully sifted”- declared the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference (KEP), Archbishop Józef Michalik, affirming that the episcopate had unanimously expressed its willingness to submit to the vetting of the documentation that concerns them, deposited in the archive of the Institute of National Memory (IPN): in other words, the documents compiled by the secret services of the former Communist regime. The task of examining the various dossiers will be conducted by the Historical Commission of the Polish Church, recently established. The results will be communicated to the Bishops’ Conference which, if necessary, will take appropriate measures. The Archbishop of Warsaw-Prague Slawoj Leszek Glódz will coordinate the work of the Commission. “DRAMATIC EVENT”. In their pastoral letter the bishops recall “the dramatic event” of the resignation of Monsignor Wielgus as Metropolitan Archbishop of Warsaw, in the light of his past as a collaborator of the Communist regime. They note that “on 5 January in an appeal addressed to the Catholic community of Warsaw, Msgr. Wielgus had confirmed his collaboration, confessing he had in this way damaged the Church, just as he had harmed her by denying, under the attacks of the media, that he had collaborated with the security services”. The bishops also note that, following these painful events that had caused “a wave of apprehension and even of mistrust in their new pastor”, “divisions in the community of the faithful had been made visible”. The Polish bishops express their gratitude to Benedict XVI “for his paternal help in the evangelical coming to terms with the difficult situation we face” and declare that in this way they are “better prepared to confront this extraordinary situation in a courageous and fruitful way”. “WE ARE NOT AFRAID”. “The Church has no fear of the truth, even if it is hard and shameful, and if the search for it is sometimes very painful. We believe that the truth shall make us free, because Jesus himself is the truth that shall liberate us all”, declare the bishops. Recalling the Gospel of the Baptism of Jesus, who in solidarity with the sinners on the banks of the Jordan received the baptism of repentance”, the bishops affirm: “We strongly believe that Jesus is here with all of us on the banks of this Polish Jordan”. In their letter to the faithful, the bishops also cite the Memorandum written by the Polish episcopate on 25 August 2006. “Once again we are witnesses that the dark past of the totalitarian system, for many decades in power in our country, continues to make itself felt”. As written in the Memorandum with regard to the collaboration of some priests with the security services in Poland in the years 1944-1989, “the documentation preserved in the archives of the IPN reveals only a part of the wide-ranging system of oppression and annihilation of Polish society conducted by the organs of security of the totalitarian state. It is not a complete and exclusive documentation of past times”. Only an exhaustive and critical examination of all the available sources will permit us to approach the truth”. “The Church in Poland, apart from standing before God in the truth, is also faced by a difficult task of reconciliation. We cannot alter the past, neither our glorious past, nor that for which we feel shame. But with God’s help we can build it into our present and our future in such a way that the strength of Christ be manifested on the face of the Church”, write the bishops, appealing “to everyone in the Church, priests and laity alike, to continue an examination of conscience on their own conduct during the period of totalitarianism” and asking “our rulers and MPs to ensure that the materials found in the archives dating from the period of Communist Poland be used in such a way as not to injure the rights of the person, nor to degrade the dignity of man, and to make possible the assessment of these materials by an independent tribunal”. “It cannot be forgotten that these materials especially accuse their authors”, conclude the Polish bishops.