Poland’s church favors Conservative Kaczynski FEATURE 06/18/2010

Poland’s church favors Conservative Kaczynski

FEATURE 06/18/2010 WARSAW — Roman Catholic priests in devout Poland have not hesitated to endorse Conservative opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski ahead of Sunday’s snap presidential election. The twin brother of late President Lech Kaczynski, whose April 10 death in an air crash in Russia forced the early presidential ballot, Jaroslaw has consistently trailed Liberal candidate Bronislaw Komorowski in opinion polls. But the gap between the two main rivals has narrowed in recent weeks. “Since President Lech Kaczynski’s plane crash, Poland’s Conservative and openly Eurosceptic bishops and priests have thrown their support behind his twin brother,” political scientist Kazimierz Kik told AFP. With the church in Poland divided, part of the hierarchy, led by the country’s new primate, Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, has called on the clergy to remain neutral. “But on the other hand, there is the fundamentalist Radio Maryja broadcaster and a large section of the episcopate engaged directly in the campaign,” he said. Five clerics teaching at the John Paul II Catholic University in Poland’s historic southern city of Krakow joined a “support committee” for Jaroslaw Kaczynski. “Priests must not be active in political parties. But as a citizen, I am entitled to express my opinion,” says one of them, Fr. Krzysztof Koscielniak. “I gave my support to Kaczynski because he is a patriot, a responsible man, respectful of values that I espouse,” he told Poland’s Rzeczpospolita daily. In a homily delivered in Wroclaw, the southwestern city’s Archbishop Marian Golebiewski called for “law and justice to reign” in Poland, a phrase which coincides with Kaczynski’s Conservative Law and Justice (PiS) opposition party.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100618com7.html

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