When an eminent Polish Dominican wrote a scathing attack on his country’s government and Church in month of January, it brought to a head long simmering frustrations.
The occasion for Fr Ludwik Wisniewski’s on slaught, in the weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, was the publication of new data confirming a decline in Mass attendance in this staunchly Catholic country. But it gained a political edge by coinciding with criticisms of the Church’s ties with Poland’s centre-right government, which faces European Union sanctions over a controversial reform programme.
The critique by the 81-yearold priest, dramatically titled Oskarzam (I accuse), was significant because it appeared in a respected Catholic publication and was written by a much-decorated veteran of the Church’s communist era struggle for human rights.
“Before our eyes, Christianity is dying in Poland while our bishops are sadly silent,” Fr Wisniewski wrote. “You can now spit on people, deride and trample on them, groundlessly accusing them of wickedness, even crimes while invoking the Gospel, decking yourself out as a defender of Christian values and making pilgrimages to Jasna Góra [Poland’s most famous Marian shrine].”
