Welcome and Wielgus Comments

Welcome to all of you who are coming over from the Times Online article. It was an honor to be included between Dom and Amy.

Now here is my response to the article.

First one must remember that communique I posted was written before Archbishop Wielgus admitted to aiding the Communist government in Poland. At the time the Archbishop was taken at his word. Unfortunately, the truth was that he had spied.

Since he has admitted it, resigning was the right thing to do. The Church needs leaders with inspire confidence, not questions or possible scandal. While I do not know the reasons why the Archbishop cooperated, I do know that he cannot be judged based on his past actions. Perhaps he was afraid? Perhaps he was misled? Perhaps he was simply a willing participant?

It doesn't make as much difference what he did then as what he does now. We all have things in our past that we wish we hadn't done, but the past cannot be erased. Unfortunately, as this has shown, the things we do can have consequences for the future.

For me, the Archbishop's mistake is not that he had cooperated, but that he tried to cover it up. Had he admitted it, we probably wouldn't still be talking about it.

While we do that confession, confessing our sins does not mean we are free from the worldy effects of our sins. A robber still has to turn himself into police and serve his sentence. The Church does not teach that confession lifts or should lift those responsibilities.

It is unfortunately that this talented bishop is now unable to serve the Archdiocese of Warsaw, but the good of the faithful must come first. If Archbishop Wielgus' involvement would cause the faithful to doubt his sanctity or the faithfulness to the Church, then it was right for him to resign.