Warsaw, Poland - A scandal rocking deeply Catholic Poland has taken a new twist with the church saying that the man poised to be sworn in as archbishop of Warsaw collaborated with the country's hated communist-era secret police.
Stanislaw Wielgus was already at the centre of a storm over his past, after Polish media in recent days published files showing that he was recruited by the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (SB) in 1967 as a 28-year-old philosophy student and continued to collaborate for two decades.
On Friday the investigative commission of the Polish Catholic episcopate stepped into the fray, confirming Wielgus's past ties with the SB.
"There exist numerous, important documents which show that Father Stanislaw Wielgus said he was ready to collaborate, in a conscious and secret manner, with the communist security services, and that he had begun that collaboration," the commission said in a statement.
Wielgus has acknowledged having met with SB agents -- particularly before foreign trips, something required of all Poles at the time -- but has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
"I did not spy on anyone, and I have done no harm either in words or deeds," Wielgus said in a statement on Friday.
"I am being accused of bad intentions and bad behaviour towards the church. That is false," he said.
A collaboration agreement from 1978 has made headlines, but Wielgus on Friday said he signed "under duress" ahead of a trip to Germany.
Polish media, however, have cited documents held by the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) -- set up in Poland in 1998 to prosecute Nazi and communist crimes -- showing that Wielgus was given "special training for agents" and was rewarded with a grant to study in Munich.
Wielgus himself asked the commission to probe his case after allegations surfaced two weeks ago.
The commission was set up last year to probe ties between priests and the regime -- long a taboo subject for an institution which was a cornerstone of the underground anti-communist opposition.
Wielgus, 67, was due to take office later Friday and be confirmed at a mass on Sunday.
The investigative commission declined to say whether his job was at risk.
"The commission and the bishop's conference are not the bodies which have supervision over bishops in Poland," commission spokesman Father Jozef Kloch told journalists.
The commission has given its report to the
Vatican, he added.
A leading religious academic and currently bishop of Plock in northern Poland, Wielgus was nominated last month by the Vatican to replace Cardinal Jozef Glemp.
Glemp, the Polish church and the Vatican have all stood behind him.
Glemp, 77 and a long-time critic of the former communist regime, has said he has "every confidence" in his successor.
And the Vatican took the unprecedented step of publishing a statement after it named Wielgus, saying that "all the circumstances of his life, including those regarding his past, were taken into consideration."
Wielgus is not the first high-ranking cleric to be accused of working with the communists.
In 2005, the IPN said it had files showing that a Polish priest who was close to the late Polish-born pope, John Paul II, worked with the communist security services in the 1980s. John Paul II was pope from 1978 until his death in April 2005.
When that row blew up, weeks after the pontiff's death, the Polish episcopate said: "One must not forget that the communist system was pitiless... it had everyone in its clutches."
More than 90 percent of Poland's 38.5-million-strong population profess to be Roman Catholic and the four-decade communist regime remains a sensitive issue in the country.
Since the end of the regime in 1989, holders of public office have had to come clean about their communist past. Collaborating with the communists does not automatically mean exclusion from public office, but failing to admit involvement with the now defunct regime does.
The come-clean rule does not apply to clerics, but two-thirds of Poles believe that SB collaborators should not hold high church office, according to a survey published Friday.
Last year the Polish church publicly apologised for those who collaborated with the SB.
Several prominent priests have admitted that they had SB links, but most deny any ties.
According to the IPN, more than 10 percent of Polish priests collaborated with the communist authorities.