Content for Poland

Nip it in the bud. “Prior consultation” with clerics can prevent a governments from even proposing anything the Church opposes. This is why the negotiating team set up for the Vatican's 1950 deal with the communists still meets behind closed doors today to lobby the Polish government. 

Accordiing to Dr Paweł Borecki, an expert in church law, the application of the Polish concordat has been selective. In the 20 years sinceit was signed, the Vatican has applied those provisions that favour it and ignored the ones that don't. The Church is given a free hand due to “the state's submissiveness”. 

Three Poles describe increased Church influence and restrictions on women since the end of Communism. “After 1989 women found that a democratically elected government gave them the right to vote in fair elections, but took away the right to decide about their own bodies.”     

It took ten years of planning, three papal visits and numerous legislative tricks, but in 1998 the Vatican finally managed to get the Polish concordat ratified. After that, a Declaration was attached to Poland's Accession Treaty to protect the concordat from EU human rights legislation.

In 1717 Clement XI had his nuncio crown an icon of the Virgin as Poland's Queen. The Virgin was also made responsible for the military protection of Poland, with the official title of Hetmanka, Commander-in-chief. John Paul II continued the tradition of militant marianism when in 1981 he enlisted a statue of the Virgin to help combat communism. The Virgin had this role in Argentina, as well.

The 1950 Modus vivendi with the Soviet satellite of Poland was the first agreement between the Vatican and a Communist state. Never published in the official gazette, this pragmatic agreement was meant to grant secret concessions which set no precedent. To conduct these negotiations a Joint Commission of government and bishops was set up. This conducts secret meetings even today.

In two short accounts Bishop Alojzy Orszulik and Fr. Professor Wojciech Góralski present the negotiations as the Vatican would have them seen — as if the concordat originated in Warsaw, not Rome. Only passing mention is made of two key Vatican diplomats, the Cardinals Cesaroli and Silvestrini.

Legal expert, Dr. Pawel Borecki, discusses frankly Vatican manoeuvres to get the Polish concordat through before the country's new constitution. This meant that Poland's whole legal framework had to conform to the concordat and this contributed to the "further clericalisation of public life". Included at the end is a remarkably deferential note to the Pope from a future Polish Prime Minister.

This Complaint to the European Union shows how Polish laws favour the Church at the taxpayers' expense: in the way the laws are framed, in the way they're applied and in the way they're skilfully evaded. The chances of success of this complaint to the Barroso Commission may be slim, but it does contains solidly sourced information which is hard to find elsewhere in English.

Poland's parliamentary and presidential chapels are state-funded and have their own Catholic chaplain. They offer religious services on topics of current political interest and afford clerics privileged access to the lawmakers. And in the summer of 2006 the parliamentary chapel was the scene of what was greeted with mirth as a rainmaking ceremnony.