Omne munus et iniquitas delebitur,
et fides in sæculum stabit. (Ecclesiasticus xl, 12)
There is not a more deeply Catholic nation in the world today, despite all its problems, than the land of the Poles. Yet, on this weekend of the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, a transfixed laity watches a former collaborator of the Russian Communist invaders take over the see of Cardinal Wyszyński, named by a German Pope. As in so many moments of Polish history, ghosts from the past, as forces from the barbarous East and of the unpredictable West, seem to conspire to destroy the strengthened confidence of a fearless people.
It is hard to define exactly what is the most worrisome aspect of this sordid affair. Is it the new confirmation of an episcopal-picking process gone awfully wrong in the Roman Curia? Is it the lack of proper analysis of documents related to the past of prelates, especially those related to the problematic Communist past in Eastern Europe? Is it the notion that an informer-collaborator of the Communists is given a free pass in Poland, while at the very same time an unknown number of priests and bishops is being imprisoned, tortured, and killed by Communist governments in China and elsewhere?
Or is it perhaps the shamelessness with which Wielgus reacted to the first news of his dark past made public by the Polish press in December? Or is it perhaps the embarrassing lie made evident by a vigorous denial of any wrongdoing in the morning [of January 5, 2007], followed by a public "confession" of collaboration with the Communist regime in the evening of the same day, when overwhelming evidence could not be denied any longer?
As Archbishop Wielgus/"Agent Grey" is installed in Warsaw's Basilica-Cathedral of Saint John this Sunday, all documents related to his past are increasingly under scrutiny. His personal collaboration with the Atheistic regime, a collaboration which was voluntary, will eventually come entirely into the limelight. Other Polish priest-collaborators should be ready, as well as clueless or ill-meaning Vatican authorities: the light of Truth does not destroy the "mass media"; it destroys the phantoms of darkness, wherever they are. The blood of the martyrs and the suffering of the persecuted shall not have been in vain.
Ecce advenit dominator Dominus:
et regnum in manu eius, et potestas, et imperium.
