POLAND
GlobalPost
Agence France-Presse
Apr 1, 2015
A decade after his death, John Paul II is still revered in his native Poland with billboards, CDs and other collectibles underscoring his popularity, but experts say the church here is struggling without him.
During his epic 26-year pontificate the only Polish-born pontiff became a pillar of national unity in his homeland and reinforced the Church’s role in the overwhelmingly Catholic nation.
As pontiff, John Paul II was the de facto leader of the Polish Church. But now without his firm hand, divisions abound.
“The Polish Church is divided into several streams and has never been so lacking in strong leadership,” Marcin Przeciszewski, editor-in-chief of the Catholic news agency KAI, told AFP.
Despite the crisis in its leadership, Poland’s church is popular compared to elsewhere in Europe, says Przeciszewski, noting that social secularisation has not taken the high toll it has exacted in other European countries such as France. …
Meanwhile several recent high-profile cases of paedophilia among clergy have compromised the credibility of the Polish Church like never before.
Priest paedophilia has long been a taboo topic in Poland but shot into the public spotlight with the case of Polish Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who is alleged to have had sex with boys while serving as a papal envoy in the Dominican Republic.
Poland’s Catholic Church apologised in June 2014 for the paedophilia in its midst at a landmark ceremony attended by top clergy and abuse victims. But it has so far ruled out compensating victims, even as it faces its first civil lawsuit for damages.
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