Polish archbishop resigns over spy scandal.

Stanislaw Wojciech Wielgus was appointed to be the Archbishop of Warsaw, Poland, by Pope Benedict XVI on December 6, 2006. However, minutes before his public installation service on January 7, the Most Rev. Wielgus resigned, yielding to public outcry and Vatican pressure over revelations that he had collaborated with Poland's communist secret police decades ago.

The 67-year-old archbishop admitted that he had "harmed the Church" by his association with secret-service agents, but insisted: "I never informed on anyone and never tried to hurt anyone" He said his association involved merely "conversing" with agents on a few occasions in the 1960s and signing a document in 1978 when seeking permission to travel to Germany. While details of his association are still foggy, a review of communist-era files by Poland's Catholic Church Historical Commission concluded: "There are numerous, substantial documents confirming Stanislaw Wielgus' willingness for a conscious and secret cooperation with the Communist security forces."

The case of Archbishop Wielgus dramatically highlights a serious problem that has gone virtually unreported in the West: the failure in Poland and other former Soviet-bloc countries to bring to justice the officials and secret police who imposed communist tyranny for decades and are responsible for the imprisonment, torture, and death of many people throughout central and eastern Europe. For the past seven years a "vetting" court has been examining the personnel files of the communist government and the security services, but no one has been convicted. This is not surprising, since many of the judges doing the vetting have problematic pasts themselves with the former communist government. According to Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, academic dean and professor of history at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.: "Virtual Communist dynasties implanted themselves in law, journalism, medicine, academia, security, and, of course, politics during the reign of totalitarianism (1944-1990). Their members continue to dominate the nation's cultural, political, and economic business, often to the detriment of the due process, fairness, justice, transparency, and democracy."