According to media reports, the Legal Advisory Council recommends that the General Assembly of the Bishops' Conference "does not appoint a commission to work on the basis of the document presented".
The expert committee criticises the guidelines proposed by the responsible Archbishop Wojciech Polak, among other things, because it is more of an "investigative" rather than a "scientific-historical" commission.
According to the planned guidelines, the commission would also be allowed to summon bishops, although only the Holy See would be authorised to judge them. Another objection is that the material collected by the experts could also be used for civil lawsuits against church organisations.
The commission could also include people "who do not necessarily have the good and credibility of the Church in mind".
The legal advisory board is headed by the Bishop of Pelplin in northern Poland, Ryszard Kasyna.
Polak told the Polish Catholic news agency KAI on Thursday that the opinion would be discussed at the plenary assembly next week.
"It has no binding character," said the Archbishop of Gniezno. Polak is the Primate of Poland and is responsible for the protection of children and young people in the Church.
More disciplinary sanctions than elsewhere
The Bishops' Conference announced in March 2023 that it would appoint an independent team of experts to investigate cases of abuse from the period between 1945 and the start of the commission's work.
Preparations have been underway since then, but no guidelines have yet been adopted.
In the meantime, the Bishops' Conference has repeatedly published statistics on charges against priests and religious for sexual abuse of minors.
There is probably no other country where the Vatican has recently imposed disciplinary sanctions on as many bishops for neglect of duty in connection with allegations of abuse as in Poland.
In 2021 alone, around ten mostly retired bishops were ordered to pay money to a church foundation that supports preventative measures against sexualised violence against minors.
In addition, most of the penalised bishops are no longer allowed to take part in any public church services in their former dioceses or in general.