Archbishop Henryk Muszynski of Gniezno said he never signed any secret police documents and felt "painfully shocked" when recently he was shown documents by the Church's historical commission listing him as a secret collaborator since 1984.
Archbishop Muszynski told Poland's Catholic information agency, KAI, that he had been required to meet with communist regime agents as a condition for obtaining a passport to travel abroad in the 1970s and had later faced pressure from the secret police.
"I was placed under surveillance, interrogated and induced to collaborate, but I never agreed -- instead, I encountered various forms of repression," he said. "I wish to declare with total resolution that I never consented to any form of SB cooperation, whether verbal or written. Nor did I agree to any meeting voluntarily or at my own initiative. They were all either necessary or forced on me."
Most of Poland's Catholic dioceses set up clergy-staffed commissions to check communist secret police archives after the resignation of Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus. In December 2006, Archbishop Wielgus was named to head the Warsaw Archdiocese, but he resigned Jan. 7, 2007, during what was to have been his own installation Mass, amid claims that he had links with secret police.
Prosecutors discontinued inquiries about the possible falsification of documents in the file of Archbishop Wielgus after finding no evidence to support claims by his supporters that he was framed.
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