The Catholic publishing house Znak has announced February 28 as the release date for a heavily anticipated book by Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, in which the former Solidarity chaplain will list the names of Church officials who, he says, collaborated with the secret police (SB) during the Communist era.Father Isakowicz-Zaleski, who now serves the Armenian Catholic community in Krakow and also works with the disabled, has become the focus of lively controversy because of his insistence on naming collaborators. He began collecting evidence from the SB files after he was informed that the secret police had collected a dossier on him because of his involvement with Solidarity. In exploring the available records he was struck by the number of references to other clerics, and resolved to expose the collaboration.
“I have done this for the good of the Church,” Father Isakowicz-Zaleski says. He added that he expects the Ecclesial Historical Commission, which has been commissioned by the Polish bishops to explore the background of Church leaders, to investigate the background of the clerics listed in his book as collaborators.
Critics within the Church argue that by airing charges against his fellow priests, Father Isakowicz-Zaleski will cause further scandal in the Polish Church, which is already badly scarred by the recent revelations. The priest-author replies that full disclosure is less damaging than implausible denials and painful discoveries such as those involving Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus. “I have written my book precisely to avoid such scandals,” he says.
Krakow’s Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz initially opposed publication of the book by Father Isakowicz-Zaleski, and Cardinal Jozef Glemp, the Primate of Poland, accused the former Solidarity chaplain of “pursuing and hounding priests all over Poland.” But more recently Cardinal Glemp apologized for his remark, and the author says that Cardinal Dziwisz has given his reluctant consent to the book’s publication.