Disputatio:Stanislaus Wielgus

Wielgus & lustratio

Wielgus's exposure as a former collaborator with the old regime's secret police has brought a Latin term to life, and maybe it should have an article of its own. From today's Wall Street Journal, p. A13 (boldface addidi):

The unintended consequences are rich in irony. Some of the loudest voices in favor of "lustration," from the Latin word for purification through sacrifice, apparently didn't realize ut would bring low not former regime hacks but people from their own ranks; the Communists didn't need informants about themselves. The influential hard-line Catholic Radio Maryja championed lustration, then fast changed its mind when its patron, Wielgus, got into trouble.

. . . There is a special "vetting" court to screen public officials (which at times uses neo-Stalinist methods in the cause of de-Stalinization); but most are prosecuted in the newspapers through press leaks from the historical institute that manages the archives. In an angry homily delivered last Sunday at St. John's, Polish Primate Jozef Glemp said: "Today Archbishop Wielgus was judged. Based on what? On scraps of paper, thrice photocopied documents. We don't want these kinds of courts!"

The 76-year-old primate is much critized for his defense of Bishop Wielgus. A day later, a younger priest published an op-ed article that said a fresh cadre of Polish priests was ready to take over from the older generation. And so lustration is a weapon for the young—and only those born after 1970 can ever truly be beyond suspicion on this count. Among politicians, the intensity of self-righteous disdain for people who had to make their lives in the past era seems inversely proportional to their age.

To doubt the wisdom of cleansing by public lynching is not to endorse moral relativism. Poland could have, but didn't, exclude senior communists from power for a few years. Too little was done to prosecute real crimes or preserve and sort out the archives. The past of anyone who runs for office in a democracy is fair game. Yet Poland, once a model in the region, has long crossed the line from healthy historical examination to post-communist McCarthyism."

The newspaper summarizes Wielgus's career thus: "In agreeing to work with the secret police, Stanlislaw Wielgus's vice wasn't drugs or sex but professional ambition." IacobusAmor 18:22, 13 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)