Beaten up by strangers, bound and gagged, a man is crawling to the door of his flat, crying for help. Were in the Autumn of 1985 and the man is Cracowian priest Tadeusz Zaleski, an active member of the opposition. Immediately following the attack, the victim has to readjust the facts personally for the archive of the Communist militia.
Twenty one years later, employees of the Polish institute for National Remembrance stumbled across the video footage in the archives of the secret services. They also uncovered a hundred-pages file on the chaplain who represented the anticommunist union movement Solidarnosc.
Sifting through the files, the priest found out that one of his fellow clergymen happened to be among those who denounced him.
Ot Tadeusz Isakiewicz-Zaleski /Catholic priest
I was surprised to find proof in the files that priests were among those who worked for the secret service. I had never suspected that.
What has mostly shocked the former pastor of Solidarnosc was the reaction of his superiors in the Archbishop Curia. He had sought their advice about what he should do with the information. After a silence that lasted for months, they finally got back to him, suggesting he destroy the embarassing evidence.
Father Zaleski chose a different course of action. In the name of all the victims, this descendant of Armenian immigrants has been asking for a public confrontation with the members of the clergy who served the communist regime. Hiding collaboration with the communist secret service can be a criminal offence in Poland.
With a major exception: as the only public institution, the Catholic Church is not subjected to this lawthanks to its privileged position within the Polish state.
Ot Tadeusz Isakiewicz-Zaleski
Those priests have never confessed their guilt in the seventeen years since the fall of Communism. They have never apologized to the people they spied on. Today, they often occupy very high positions in the Church hierarchy. Not just in our diocese.
The appeal made by the upright Cracovian pastor has had an effect: Put under permanent pressure to disclose the identity of suspected agents in sack cloth, the polish bishop conference admitted for the first time that there were cases of priests collaborating with the regime and asked the victims for forgiveness. The Cracovian archdiocese has announced that an internal investigation committee would be formed. Over there, the surveillance of the clergy by agents of Section 4 of the secret service was systematic and ubiquitous.
Ot Tadeusz Pieronek / Catholic bishop
Intimidation was tried on everybody. But clergymen were especially spied on. A file was made for each priest upon entering the Seminar. Later on, they would try to recruit him for long-term collaboration. The aim was to keep the priest under control and then put him to use when the appropriate time came. Several methods were used. If it had been found that a member of the clergy had failed his moral obligations, if he had private issues or had caused a car accident, he was an easier prey for blackmail. All pretexts were good enough for the secret service to put people under collossal pressure and even force them to sign a collaboration contract.
The paper files on the collaboration of catholic priests with the communist regime are being stowed in the archives of the Institute for National Remembrance, which is conducting research into the crimes of Communism. Until recently, the Polish episcopat was relying on the assumption that the Section 4 files regarding surveillance of the Church had been destroyed immediately after the end of Communism.
But the latest bestseller on the Polish market, The Popes Agents, puts a definite end to the myth of the Churchs infallibility under the regime. As a historian at the Institute for National Remembrance, the author was the first to gain access to confidential files.
Marek Lasota /Historian and Writer
The security apparatus was not just there to collect information, it also tried to influence individual bishops and the Church as a whole. Karol Wojtyla had always been aware of it. Proof of this is a document dating from 1973 in which he commits all priests to notifying the curia of all contacts they might have had with secret service officials and report conversations.
The author didntreveal the names of the agents in the close circle around Karol Wojtyla but their code names are easy enough to decipher. Followed suspicion, prejudice, and a heated debate over the credibility of the sources.
Ot Jozefa Hennelowa /stellv.managing editor Tygodnik Powszeczny"
Those documents come from enemies of the Church. Thats why they were used with evil intentions. They are incomplete and tendentious. The necessary cleansing of the past will never occur though the hasty condemnations brought about by such documents. On the contrary, it will only cause unrest and injustice.
Radwanowice, a Cracovian suburb. For the past nineteen years, Father Zalelski has managed here a daycare centre for mentally disabled children.
As a young man, his dreams of studying in the Vatican were ruined by the refusal of communist officials to let opponents travel abroad.
Ot Tadeusz Isakiewicz-Zaleski
I didnt want to hear any of it. I never went to Rome and never got to finish my studies. I listened to my superiors in the hierarchy and neither spoke to nor collaborated with the secret services. I paid a high price for this.
In arch-Catholic Poland, dealing with the communist past turns out to be quite painful for the Church. Up to 15% of priests allegedly had ties with the secret service. However, the authority of the Church as a stronghold against totalitarianism seems intact. The so-called JP 2 generation that grew up during the 25-year pontificate of John Paul II scarcely shows any interest in learning about that past.
Twenty one years later, employees of the Polish institute for National Remembrance stumbled across the video footage in the archives of the secret services. They also uncovered a hundred-pages file on the chaplain who represented the anticommunist union movement Solidarnosc.
Sifting through the files, the priest found out that one of his fellow clergymen happened to be among those who denounced him.
Ot Tadeusz Isakiewicz-Zaleski /Catholic priest
I was surprised to find proof in the files that priests were among those who worked for the secret service. I had never suspected that.
What has mostly shocked the former pastor of Solidarnosc was the reaction of his superiors in the Archbishop Curia. He had sought their advice about what he should do with the information. After a silence that lasted for months, they finally got back to him, suggesting he destroy the embarassing evidence.
Father Zaleski chose a different course of action. In the name of all the victims, this descendant of Armenian immigrants has been asking for a public confrontation with the members of the clergy who served the communist regime. Hiding collaboration with the communist secret service can be a criminal offence in Poland.
With a major exception: as the only public institution, the Catholic Church is not subjected to this lawthanks to its privileged position within the Polish state.
Ot Tadeusz Isakiewicz-Zaleski
Those priests have never confessed their guilt in the seventeen years since the fall of Communism. They have never apologized to the people they spied on. Today, they often occupy very high positions in the Church hierarchy. Not just in our diocese.
The appeal made by the upright Cracovian pastor has had an effect: Put under permanent pressure to disclose the identity of suspected agents in sack cloth, the polish bishop conference admitted for the first time that there were cases of priests collaborating with the regime and asked the victims for forgiveness. The Cracovian archdiocese has announced that an internal investigation committee would be formed. Over there, the surveillance of the clergy by agents of Section 4 of the secret service was systematic and ubiquitous.
Ot Tadeusz Pieronek / Catholic bishop
Intimidation was tried on everybody. But clergymen were especially spied on. A file was made for each priest upon entering the Seminar. Later on, they would try to recruit him for long-term collaboration. The aim was to keep the priest under control and then put him to use when the appropriate time came. Several methods were used. If it had been found that a member of the clergy had failed his moral obligations, if he had private issues or had caused a car accident, he was an easier prey for blackmail. All pretexts were good enough for the secret service to put people under collossal pressure and even force them to sign a collaboration contract.
The paper files on the collaboration of catholic priests with the communist regime are being stowed in the archives of the Institute for National Remembrance, which is conducting research into the crimes of Communism. Until recently, the Polish episcopat was relying on the assumption that the Section 4 files regarding surveillance of the Church had been destroyed immediately after the end of Communism.
But the latest bestseller on the Polish market, The Popes Agents, puts a definite end to the myth of the Churchs infallibility under the regime. As a historian at the Institute for National Remembrance, the author was the first to gain access to confidential files.
Marek Lasota /Historian and Writer
The security apparatus was not just there to collect information, it also tried to influence individual bishops and the Church as a whole. Karol Wojtyla had always been aware of it. Proof of this is a document dating from 1973 in which he commits all priests to notifying the curia of all contacts they might have had with secret service officials and report conversations.
The author didntreveal the names of the agents in the close circle around Karol Wojtyla but their code names are easy enough to decipher. Followed suspicion, prejudice, and a heated debate over the credibility of the sources.
Ot Jozefa Hennelowa /stellv.managing editor Tygodnik Powszeczny"
Those documents come from enemies of the Church. Thats why they were used with evil intentions. They are incomplete and tendentious. The necessary cleansing of the past will never occur though the hasty condemnations brought about by such documents. On the contrary, it will only cause unrest and injustice.
Radwanowice, a Cracovian suburb. For the past nineteen years, Father Zalelski has managed here a daycare centre for mentally disabled children.
As a young man, his dreams of studying in the Vatican were ruined by the refusal of communist officials to let opponents travel abroad.
Ot Tadeusz Isakiewicz-Zaleski
I didnt want to hear any of it. I never went to Rome and never got to finish my studies. I listened to my superiors in the hierarchy and neither spoke to nor collaborated with the secret services. I paid a high price for this.
In arch-Catholic Poland, dealing with the communist past turns out to be quite painful for the Church. Up to 15% of priests allegedly had ties with the secret service. However, the authority of the Church as a stronghold against totalitarianism seems intact. The so-called JP 2 generation that grew up during the 25-year pontificate of John Paul II scarcely shows any interest in learning about that past.