[Dean's World] Ron Coleman: Skeletons in the closet

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Ron Coleman:
Skeletons in the closet
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1168275151.shtml


   Totalitarianism has a way of stacking skeletons in the closets even
   almost [1]everyone.

     WARSAW: The newly appointed archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw
     Wielgus, abruptly resigned Sunday at a Mass meant to celebrate his
     new position after admitting two days earlier that he had worked
     with Poland's Communist-era secret police.

     The revelation has shaken one of Europe's largest concentrations of
     devout Catholics and refocused scrutiny on charges of Communist
     collaboration by the some of its clergy even as the church
     supported dissidents trying to free themselves from the
     totalitarian yoke.

     Moments before he was to sit on the archbishop's throne at Warsaw
     Cathedral, symbolically taking his new place in the church
     hierarchy, Wielgus read a statement saying that he had offered his
     resignation to Pope Benedict XVI earlier in the day "after
     reflecting deeply and assessing my personal situation."

     The Vatican had announced the resignation a half-hour earlier,
     saying that the charges surrounding Wielgus had "gravely
     compromised his authority."

   How hard it is for us to judge people faced with the dilemmas he must
   have. He was wrong, and perhaps he cost people their lives by what he
   did. Evidently he did not really come clean when his hand was first
   forced (they never do):

     The archbishop had tried to minimize reports of his collaboration,
     which surfaced two weeks after the pope had named him to the job on
     Dec. 6, insisting that his contacts with the country's feared
     security service â the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, or SB â were benign
     and routine.

     But Wielgus admitted to deeper involvement on Friday after
     documents from secret police files were published in newspapers
     that suggested he had informed on fellow clerics for decades,
     beginning in the late 1960s.

   How does such a person live with himself, even though he must?

References

   1. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/07/news/poland.php