Controversial Radio Maryja priest sparks latest outrage
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
27.06.2011 15:05
Poland's prime minister has vowed to crackdown on the ultra-conservative Radio Maryja after its founder Father Tadeusz Rydzyk said told MEPs at the European Parliament last week that, "Poland has not been ruled by Poles since 1939".
His statement is being interpreted as meaning Poland is being ruled by Jews.
Father Rydzyk’s radio station has frequently been accused of making anti-Semitic statement in the past.
Rydzyk also told MEPs that those ruling post-communist Poland were “totalitarian”.
"The tragedy of Poland is that Poland hasn't been ruled by Poles since 1939 - [by those] who do not love in a Polish way, do not have a Polish heart," Father Rydzyk told MEPs, prompting the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw to take the unprecedented step of making an official complaint to the Vatican.
Rydzyk has “harmed to image of Poland abroad ” the Foreign Ministry said and asked for the Holy See to discipline the priest.
In retaliation, three senators from the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party wrote to Prime Minister Tusk this morning complaining that the Foreign Ministry was attacking Father Rydzyk’s right to “freedom of speech”.
"[The letter from the Foreign Ministry] is a scandalous violation of democratic norms used by the state apparatus to suppress free speech," the senators’ statement said.
Prime Minister Tusk, speaking in Gdansk today, said however that “our government is not trying to suppress Father Rydzyk”, but that Radio Maryja had been acting for many years in a manner not befitting of a professional radio station.
Father Rydzyk heads a media empire containing Radio Maryja plus a TV station, newspaper and media school, which the Vatican has accused in the past of meddling in far-right politics.
"My government, as it has done in the past and will do in the future, will not give preferential treatment to anyone, even if that someone is a priest who controls a powerful media empire," Tusk added today.
Former prime minister of Poland and now president of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek added his weight to the row saying at the weekend: “The words of Father Rydzyk were scandalous and unacceptable. I highly regret they were uttered in a public forum. On the other hand, I would like to point out that they went practically unnoticed in the European Parliament [at the time].” (pg)