Glemp on Europe and Mammon
There's not much that ruffles the cassock of Cardinal Józef Glemp.
As Poland's primate, he's got the top job in the hierarchy of the Polish Catholic Church. And since 1983 when his close friend, Pope John Paul II, appointed him to the post, he's weathered quite a number of moral storms.
Some of the more recent ecclesiastical bad weather has included sexual abuse allegations involving Polish priests, falling numbers of his faithful flock and lower marriage and birth rates. Then there was the 50th anniversary of the Jedwabne massacre, when it was acknowledged that Polish villagers had participated in a pogrom against the local Jewish community; and Radio Maryja, the fundamentalist radio station run by controversial priest, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, continues to be a trying thorn in his side.
But the most trying tribulation of all for Glemp is Poland's bid to join the European Union.
The 72-year-old Glemp a squat man with drooping eyes and prominent ears that could have been drawn by a caricaturist's nib, is like a modern-day Doubting Thomas.
On the one hand, he says he supports EU accession for its economic benefits. But on the other hand, he dismisses it for the moral degeneration its economic changes might bring.
"The European Union is lacking spirituality," said Glemp, speaking to the Business Journal in the cloistered calm of his Warsaw residence. "We think that economic help from EU membership is positive and the Polish church will not hamper it. But we will not agitate for or against it."
In fact, Glemp insists that he and the church are only "observers" of the drawn-out process of EU negotiations.
But give him a push and Glemp will admit that he is concerned about many areas of the EU, particularly the farming, mining and steel industries.
"I only wonder if the deadlines are not set too soon," he said, referring to the EU's negotiation deadlines on these and other issues.
He also points out that it was only twelve years ago that Poland extricated itself from a union of another type with the USSR, "and now we are entering the European Union."
"The West is not considering this mentality - those fears that are here before entering the European Union, which is just a different type of union," Glemp said.
In the past, Glemp hasn't been quite so demure when it comes to voicing his political opinions.
In 1995 he warned a sea of pilgrims at Częstochowa about Europe's wanton ways.
"There are two ways for the poor to enter rich men's clubs," he thundered, referring to Poland's EU ambitions. "One is to impress them with one's strength of character, personality and readiness to work hard. The other is to abandon one's own style of life and do little else but impersonate everything the rich do.
"We must not get bogged down in an attempt to cater to bring out people's animal natures by simply giving them easy work, good food, amusements and sex," Glemp said.
Today, Glemp doesn't recall saying this. "But still, I don't think that it differs from my thoughts today," he said.
What Glemp does take strong exception to is the accusation that he uses the pulpit as his own soapbox.
"I have used the pulpit to defend the truth and justice," he said in his defence. "I have attacked communism because it was unjust. Today, we have no such circumstances, so we do not use it. It's wrong to say that the pulpit is used in political activities. This is a slogan.
"But on the other hand," he added as a contradictory after thought, "why shouldn't we meddle? The church is part of society. It represents a large group of people."
And why indeed shouldn't he meddle? Many of his biretta-wearing colleagues do.
Rumours abound in the press of a widening chasm that has split Poland's Catholic Church between two camps: those who follow Glemp and his apparent support for EU's market-driven approach and those who support Radio Maryja's Rydzyk and the xenophobic, anti-EU, anti-Semitic views the station broadcasts to a claimed 5.9 million listeners every week.
Rydzyk's supporters include the anti-EU political party, League of Polish Families, which, with plenty of on-air publicity from Radio Maryja, won 38 seats in the Sejm during the last parliamentary elections.
This month Glemp put into effect a decree requiring Radio Maryja to obtain a bishop's permission before undertaking fundraising efforts in his Warsaw dioceses. Glemp was hoping that other dioceses would follow suit, but it has been reported that many of Poland's bishops are supporting the station, rather than Glemp.
Sitting in his private salon, surrounded by sombre portraits of Poland's former cardinals, resplendent in their red biretta caps and cassocks, Glemp is surprisingly forgiving about the whole issue.
"There is freedom of speech and we cannot say that a group of people cannot express their opinions," he said. "We can only persuade and we know that not everyone can be of the same opinion. Radio Maryja is following a populist line; we can only acknowledge it. When there is necessity, we criticise it, but this poses no threat. We will voice our opinions when it comes to discussion on human life, abortion, marriages."
It was implied in the media that Glemp had already voiced his opinion on moral issues - principally abortion - with the government, and that an agreement was reached: The church would support the government's pro-EU stance, in return for not pushing for changes to Poland's strict anti-abortion laws.
Glemp denies knowledge of any such agreement, insisting it was the government that decided it did not want to raise the controversial issue of abortion when it already faces so many other EU issues.
The summer visit by Pope John Paul II must therefore have firmly inserted a spanner in the government's plans.
President Aleksander Kwaniewski and Glemp had invited the Pope to Poland. A plug from the the Holy Father would have been just the sort of boost the government needed for its public relations offensive in advance of next year's referendum on Poland's accession to the Big Bad West.
But such words never fell from the papal lips. Instead, John Paul told his audience on the grassy fields outside Kraków: "What should be the criteria for Europeanism? Freedom? What freedom? The freedom to take the life of an unborn child?"
What did Glemp think about that?
"A man has to be in control of the material world," he said. "This is obvious to us."
Earlier in the interview, on this issue he said, "We think man should come first, and human dignity should dominate wealth. Those who are rich should make sure that the poor do not become the slaves to money. I think that capital cannot rule a man. It should be the other way round."
