VATICAN:Pope Benedict has issued a "special apostolic blessing" to Stanislaw Wielgus six weeks after he resigned as archbishop of Warsaw after lying about his collaboration with communist Poland's secret service, reports Derek Scally.
The letter of reconciliation from Rome comes just as Bishop Wielgus rescinded his admission of collaboration, made in the frenzied hours before his inaugural mass last month. Now he has hired a lawyer to demand that a special vetting court reopen his case and clear his name.
"Regarding the past, I am fully aware of the extraordinary circumstances in which his Excellency carried out his service, when the Marxist regime in Poland was using all means to suppress citizens' rights, especially those of the clergy," the pope wrote in the letter.
At first, Bishop Wielgus denied the collaboration allegations and the Vatican issued a statement expressing the pope's "full confidence" in the future Warsaw archbishop. But when files appeared on the internet showing a long-term collaboration, the bishop admitted what the documents already indicated, that he met secret service officials regularly to get passports for foreign research trips.
He denied reporting on church affairs or on the clergy. Two independent commissions, however, concluded that the evidence in his file suggested a collaboration of over 20 years.
The Wielgus consecration went ahead, but two days later he resigned as archbishop amid chaotic scenes in Warsaw cathedral.
The pope has called today's Ash Wednesday celebrations in Poland a day of "prayer and penitence for all the Polish clergy". The prayers may be necessary: next Wednesday a Krakow priest will publish a book naming 39 bishops and priests he found listed as collaborators in his own file.