Two major points of discussion have arisen from recent events in Poland. First, obviously, the situation of the Church under the Communist regime.
Secondly is the selection and vetting of bishops.
The question is raised in First Things today - twice. First by Robert Miller:
Now, either the Vatican knew about Wielgus’ past when it appointed him, as Wielgus says and as the Vatican’s statement in December strongly suggests, or else it did not, as Re now maintains. If the former, then the Vatican’s investigation of Wielgus prior to the appointment was grossly negligent, failing to discover information that was readily available in Poland. If the latter, as seems much more likely, then the Holy See exercised very poor judgment in making the appointment in the first place and even worse judgment in attempting to ram it through even after the truth about Wielgus became public. It stood by Wielgus while it knew he was lying to the faithful by denying the allegations. Many faithful Catholics looking at this situation will think that our bishops, rather than their critics, are the ones doing the real harm to the Church here.
For those who love Poland and admire the vitality of Catholic faith in that country, developments surrounding the withdrawal of Stanislaw Wielgus as Archbishop of Warsaw are cause for deep sadness. The post below by Robert Miller is also sharply critical of the Holy See’s role in this unhappy affair, and I wish I could say that the criticism is unwarranted. Perhaps we will have in the near future a clarification of what the Holy See knew and didn’t know, and why this matter was handled as it was.
It is deeply disappointing that truth in the Wielgus matter had to be advanced by the Polish media rather than being addressed by the Polish bishops and the Holy See. It is noteworthy that the story was broken by what is viewed as a paper on the right, not on the left. There is a curious convergence of nationalist Catholic forces and former communists—many of whom are not so former—in trying to use the Wielgus affair to create a backlash against a candid account of who did what during the communist era.
For many years I have been involved each summer in the Tertio Millennio Seminar on Catholic social doctrine in Cracow, Poland. This summer there were long and agonizing conversations with various Poles about information regarding priests and prelates who may have crossed the line from innocent cooperation to culpable collaboration with the communists. Poland has set up an Institute of National Memory that is going through miles and miles of documentation from the communist years. This is not an anti-Church project. There are devout Catholics among the scholars involved who only want the truth to be known. They had warned that the Wielgus appointment to Warsaw would be a great mistake.
Now, before we get rolling, we might want to remember some things. There is no single template for selection of bishops in the RC church. Having them directly appointed by the Pope is a relatively recent practice, although approval by the Bishop of Rome goes back a long way. Bishops have been elected by the people of a Christian community, they have been elected by presbyters, by cathedral canons, by other bishops and appointed by secular rulers. And yes, bishops have even purchased their offices.
I don't think they do that any more.
But even as the selection of bishops has become more centralized, the role of local Church remains - is supposed to remain. Every few years, a questionnaire is circulated among priests of a diocese and sometimes even certain lay people, asking them what priests in that diocese would be good and worthy bishops. Names surface, are watched, put forward, are vetted by the Metropolitan Bishop of that Ecclesiastical Province (that was, if you recall, one of the complaints of some priests of the Diocese of Belleville when Bishop Braxton was appointed. They claimed the selection had not been vetted through Cardinal George), the Papal Nuncio and the office of the Congregation of Bishops.
A completely open process? No. Completely closed? No. Subject to problems? Sure.
The primary problems being the power of "bishop makers" - other bishops who have influence over their peers and in the Vatican to push forward and promote the names of their favored colleagues as well as the tendency to favor what we might call "company men." Those who are comfortable with the status quo and will protect it. Which is, of course, a fact of life in any bureaucracy.
So in the midst of these risks and temptations, the role of the Papal Nuncio and the staff of the Congregation of Bishops is to look beyond, and to dig deeper, to look at names with fresh and critical eyes. Not to simply trust that if this name has been put forward by this body, there must be no problems, it all must be for the good.
Perhaps, not always.
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