james_krotov ([info]james_krotov) wrote,
@ 2007-01-08 10:44:00
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Party present vs. Party past
Vatican to the last resisted attempts of perlustration of Roman Catholic Church in former Communist lands. Arch. Wielgus came out to be an agent of the Communist secret police: this was proven in 2006. Vatican denied the fact when it was published by some private person. Wielgus was appointed the archbishop of Warszaw, one of the key posts in Poland church. On January 5 Polish Historical Commission officially declared that Wielgus was a traitor. Even after that Vatican didn't dismiss Wielgus, but declared that his collaboration didn't make any harm to anyone and was purely symbolical. Still, Wielgus under the pressure of the Polish public opinion (secular) resigned. Even after that jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said:

"[T]he present wave of attacks against the Catholic Church in Poland does not seem to be a sincere search for transparency and truth, but rather a strange alliance between persecutors of the past and other adversaries, a vengeance on the part of those who, in the past, had persecuted her and were defeated by the faith and the thirst for freedom of the Polish people."

This is a typical rhethoric with which Communist propaganda explained that any criticism of Communist Party is only a dirty manipulation on the side of capitalists and their servants.

Father Lombardi explained that members of the Church must be faithful to the truth: "'The truth will make you free,' says Christ. The Church is not afraid of the truth and, to be faithful to her Lord, her members must be able to acknowledge their own faults."

A wonderful example of the hypocrisy. The Church hierarchs were not the first to say a truth about their collaboration with Communist secret service. They are not in a hurry now to find out who collaborated with the Russian Communist secret service, although it is obvious that such collaboration was very widespread. Vatican comes out to be an enclave of the Communist-style hypocrisy, newspeak and totalitarianism amidst the Western world. What a luck that "Vatican" is not synonymous to the "Church" and it is yet possible to be Catholic and to be honest person.



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[info]lupandin
2007-02-16 07:25 am UTC (link)
I fully agree, that "honesty is the best policy" (in the Church politics as well). The resignation of Wielgus is a sign that something is changing to the better. Let us hope and not lose courage. The situation in the Russian Orthodox Church under Brezhnev was much worse, and nevertheless there were such confessors in it as Father Alexander Men. Much depends on the person willing to collaborate not with KGB, but with God's grace.
P.S.
Thank you for including me to the community of your LJ-friends.

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