Probe Goes Ahead

A team of Roman Catholic Church historians and experts has been pulled together to check the files of communist-era secret police for evidence of collaboration and resistance among priests in southern Poland, a church spokesman said yesterday.

The "Remembrance and Truth" commission was set up by the Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was personal secretary to the late Polish-born Pope John Paul II.

It will be a method of cleansing for the church, and will help prevent wrongful accusations, Cardinal Dziwisz's spokesman, the Reverend Robert Necek, said.

Similar commissions that look into the events that took place before Poland toppled communism in 1989 are already active in several other dioceses in Poland. Poland's communist rulers considered the church an enemy and used various methods to crush its authority and influence among people.