Poland Bishop Crisis Likely to Worsen

1. Poland’s Communist security service said 12 bishops “cooperating” in 1978 “Any hope that the departure of Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus would lay to rest controversies over the alleged collaboration of Polish clergy with the Communist-era security forces quickly dissolved on Monday, as another senior Polish cleric stepped down under the weight of similar allegations, and a major newspaper disclosed a memo from senior officials of the security service, dated 1978, which asserted that twelve Polish bishops were cooperating at that time in plans to influence the Catholic church,” John Allen notes in his daily National Catholic Reporter column. “In yet another shocking disclosure, the Polish weekly Wrpost unearthed documents claiming that a Polish auxiliary bishop had reported on meetings of the Polish bishops to the secret police from 1963 to 1970, including discussions of the Polish contingent at the Second Vatican Council.”

It’s not just a historical matter, nor is it one isolated to Poland, Robert T. Miller writes on the First Things website:

[E]ither the Vatican knew about Wielgus’ past when it appointed him, as Wielgus says and as the Vatican’s statement in December strongly suggests, or else it did not, as [Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops] now maintains. If the [latter], then the Vatican’s investigation of Wielgus prior to the appointment was grossly negligent, failing to discover information that was readily available in Poland. If the [former], as seems much more likely, then the Holy See exercised very poor judgment in making the appointment in the first place and even worse judgment in attempting to ram it through even after the truth about Wielgus became public. Even worse, it stood by Wielgus while it knew he was lying to the faithful by denying the allegations. Many faithful Catholics looking at this situation will think that our bishops, rather than their critics, are the ones doing the real harm to the Church here.

Also on the First Things website, Richard John Neuhaus worries that the Wielgus case will “detract from the heroic record of Stefan Cardinal Wyszinski of Warsaw and Karol Cardinal Wojtyla of Cracow, later Pope John Paul II, under the communist regime. … Compared to other countries behind the Iron Curtain, such as what was then Czechoslovakia, they and other leaders were remarkably successful in resisting the infiltration of the Church by the state.”

Actually, the Institute of National Memory (IPN) archives that are the source of all these revelations serve as a reminder of the resistance of Wyszinski and Wojtyla. The document that lists the 12 cooperating bishops (by code names only) also “describes efforts by the security agency to influence the selection of a successor to Wyszynski … known as the ‘Primate of the Millennium’ for his staunch resistance to the Communists,” Allen writes. “The Communists were particularly eager that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow … not be given the job.”

Allen spoke to Wojtyla’s / John Paul II’s biographer, George Weigel, in an earlier column on Wielgus, and late yesterday Weigel’s analysis appeared on Newsweek‘s website:

The Catholic Church thus has everything to gain by turning the Wielgus affair into an opportunity to deal with the IPN archives in a serious way, making a clean breast of its modern history while helping shape a sophisticated public understanding of the nature of life under totalitarianism—which is already being forgotten among too many Poles (not to mention Westerners). By the same token, Polish Catholicism has a lot to lose, if it does not take the responsibility to tell the full truth about its recent history—and the potential damage reaches far beyond the court of public opinion.

2. John Yates and Os Guinness explain the split John Yates, rector of The Falls Church, and Os Guinness, one of his most notable parishioners, aren’t happy about media descriptions of why their congregation voted to break ties with the Episcopal Church. In a Monday The Washington Post op-ed, they write:

The core issue in why we left is not women’s leadership. It is not “Episcopalians against equality,” as the headline on a recent Post op-ed by Harold Meyerson put it. It is not a “leftward” drift in the church. It is not even primarily ethical — though the ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone.

No, they said: “The core issue for us is theological: the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world. It is thus a matter of faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus, whom we worship and follow. The American Episcopal Church no longer believes the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers. … [T]here is little identifiably Christian in Episcopal revisionism. Would that Episcopal leaders showed the same zeal for their faith that they do for their property.”

Such explanations have been given by orthodox Anglicans around the world, but reporters continue to shorthand the conflict as being “over gays.” Good for Yates and Guinness for working to set the matter straight. However, one does wish that they would have added a bit more on why they actually severed ties with the Episcopal Church, since that was the supposed subject of their article. There are many who agree the Episcopal Church has abandoned historic Christianity, but who choose to remain within the church for various reasons. What’s the connection between opposing the teachings and practices of Episcopal leaders and leaving the Episcopal Church?

3. Los Angeles Times: Touch not the unclean investment “The Gates Foundation invests heavily in sub-prime lenders and other businesses that undercut its good works,” says a four-part series in the Los Angeles Times. “The Gates Foundation reaps vast profits every year from companies whose actions contradict its mission of improving society in the United States and around the world, particularly the lot of people afflicted by poverty and disease.”

The Times notes that “other leading philanthropies” don’t screen much, either. But it’s the Gates Foundation that’s the focus. The foundation actually does screen against tobacco, but the Times is upset that it invests in mortgage lender Ameriquest, oil companies, and “four large chocolate makers.”

It’s a bit surprising to see the Times give so much space to this and repeatedly assert that the investments conflict with the Gates Foundation’s “good works.” The foundation’s “$66 billion will give the Gates Foundation more than 10 percent of the assets of all of the charitable foundations in the United States and provide it with unmatched muscle and potential moral authority,” Charles Piller writes. “Though it does a vast amount of good with its grants, the foundation declines to use its influence in efforts to reform companies whose business practices flout its goals.” A 266-word sidebar dismisses the notion that screened investments may not have as high returns.

What’s the religion angle here? Nothing direct, though ethics-based investing has been a religion trend for a bit, and Christian aid organizations also have to ask questions about where their money comes from. They’re important questions, and Weblog does hope that organizations are “following the money” to guard whenever possible against doing evil.

Still, Weblog was interested in this series simply for how … familiar it seemed. The Times‘s enforcing of its own kind of orthodoxy and criticism of the Gates Foundation for taking “dirty” money, is the kind of story we at CT see all the time. It’s very much like the supposed scandal over the Hewlett Foundation’s donation to the Evangelical Climate Initiative or the opposition to Rick Warren inviting Sen. Barack Obama to speak at Saddleback Church’s AIDS summit. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” Interpretation of that verse has separated evangelicals from their fundamentalist forefathers. It’s interesting when a similar kind of fundamentalism pops up in another sphere.

4. Did National Geographic buy off scholars for its Gospel of Judas blitz? While you’re at the Los Angeles Times website, check out Saturday’s update on the Gospel of Judas controversy. I thought it was rather settled now among academics that the National Geographic Society had betrayed good scholarship in its efforts to get press attention for its expensive manuscript, and thus sales for its related books. But Marvin Meyer, who helped to translate the Coptic manuscript, stands by the way his work was done and handled. His former mentor, James M. Robinson, is still livid about the entire affair. The Times focuses on their broken friendship, putting the scholarship and business aspects in the background (there’s an apparent attempt here to draw parallels between the Robinson-Meyer relationship and the Jesus-Judas one, but not too closely).

5. All we, like sheep? Researchers at Oregon State University are reportedly testing a method that alters the sexuality of sheep, so that rams that prefer to mount other rams instead mate with ewes. “This experiment throws up difficulties for all sides of the millennia-long debate about homosexuality. It gives the forces of homophobia plenty to fume against by annihilating their most hoary argument: that gay sex is ‘unnatural,'” Johann Hari writes in The Independent. However, he adds, “At the very moment the world is being forced to admit homosexuality is not a choice, this experiment raises the distant prospect that it might become one after all.” Mark Steyn‘s take, meanwhile, is hard to summarize.

Quote of the day “God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ to lift us out of the darkness of sin. Only with the truth of clergy sexual abuse exposed could we again seek to walk fully in His light.”

—Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, on Epiphany and the five-year anniversary of the clergy abuse scandal.

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Poland resignations:

Spying scandal weighs on Polish church | The abrupt resignation of two top Roman Catholic clergymen over alleged ties to Communist-era secret police has left Poland facing a “national crisis,” the prime minister said Tuesday (Associated Press)
New Warsaw archbishop quits over Communist collaboration | Stanislaw Wielgus resigned after admitting that he had worked with the Polish Communist-era secret police (The New York Times)
Saturday: Ties to Communist secret police snare Polish bishop | Warsaw’s new archbishop admitted that he had collaborated with the Communist-era secret police (The New York Times)
Poland’s chief Roman Catholic criticized | Poland’s top Roman Catholic leader faced criticism Monday for defending an archbishop who resigned over ties with the communist-era secret police — a stance that put him at odds with the Vatican and many Polish faithful (Associated Press)
Warsaw archbishop who admitted spying for communists resigns | On Friday, the 67-year-old archbishop acknowledged that he had “harmed the church” by his association with secret service agents. He insisted, however, that “I never informed on anyone and never tried to hurt anyone.” (Los Angeles Times)
Pope didn’t know Warsaw bishop spied, cardinal says | Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus resigned on Sunday after admitting to collaborating with Poland’s communist secret police — conduct that the Vatican’s top spokesman acknowledged on Sunday had “gravely compromised his authority.” (Reuters)
Archbishop tied to secret police quits in Warsaw | Prelate admitted he cooperated with ex-regime (The Boston Globe)
Archbishop of Warsaw resigns, Weigel warns of future ‘blackmail’ | American Catholic writer George Weigel, who teaches regularly in Poland and has extensive contacts in the Polish church, said the Wielgus episode illustrates the need for the church to deal with this chapter of its past (John Allen, National Catholic Reporter)
Poland’s battle for souls | The Roman Catholic Church sees itself as the custodian of Polish culture. Even today, it still carries weight in the nation’s politics. But fewer and fewer people are obeying its commandments (Der Spiegel, Germany)
Acts of contrition: Warsaw archbishop quits over secret police past | In the Polish Catholic Church’s biggest scandal in years, the archbishop of Warsaw has resigned over his ties to Poland’s communist-era secret police. Crowds gathered for what they thought would be his ordination were divided, with some applauding while others shouted “Stay with us!” (Der Spiegel, Germany)
Head priest of Krakow cathedral resigns | A second prominent Catholic clergyman quit his post Monday amid allegations he collaborated with Poland’s Communist-era secret police, a day after Warsaw’s new archbishop resigned after admitting he had cooperated with the despised agency (Associated Press)
Second church official resigns in Poland | The controversy raised concerns about an erosion of the church’s image (The New York Times)
The archbishop’s bargain — and Poland’s | Surely this could have happened only in post-communist Poland. Where else would millions be avidly watching the live broadcast of an archbishop’s inaugural Mass? (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post)
An archbishop falls to a witchhunt | A personal pick of the Pope resigns amid a movement in Eastern Europe to purge anyone tainted with communist collaboration (Andrew Purvis, Time)
Lessons from an archbishop’s fall | To take control of its own history, the Catholic Church in Poland needs to vet miles of communist-era police records (George Weigel, Newsweek)

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