Is Bergoglio Going After Poland's Radio Maryja Next?

Radio Maryja, the idiosyncratic Catholic radio station in Poland, is a thorn in the side of some.

(Rome) Since in Poland the Catholic national conservative party Law and Justice (PiS) is in power, the country is "under observation" by the EU. In Brussels, political forces set the tone, which are much further to the left and can hardly stand it when the sovereign electorate chooses other political forces. In turn, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament or the EU jurisdiction and, of course, the Western media, both Poland's and Hungary's government are disparaged as a "dirty children" of the "community."  The aim of the permanent pressure is either to induce the government to give in or to urge the electorate to choose a government to the left. Does the Vatican also participate in this under Pope Francis?

Specifically, it's about the radio station Radio Maryja. In 1991, soon after the end of Communist rule, a launched station was started that was modeled upon Radio Maria Italy . The founder and program director is the Redemptorist, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. With the so-called “world family” of the Radio Maria stations, however, there was a split in the mid-1990s. In the Federal Republic of Germany in particular, efforts were made to keep a distance because of a different approach to one's own history. Radio Maryja is one of the five most listened to channels in Poland. In contrast to the other Radio Maria stations,  Fr. Rydzyk  pursued - since Poland had just over 40 years of an anti-church Communist dictatorship -   a political line and cultivated clearer language.

This was mainly due to the fact that the dictatorship had been overcome, but that the former Communist rulers outside the government and parliament were still at many levers, not least in the judiciary. Under the changed name, they even briefly returned to power in the 1990s. The way to overcome the dictatorship personally and above all, spiritually proved to be long and rocky.

The radio station, to which the TV station TV Trwam now belongs, supports the PiS without, however, becoming dependent. From left media, especially the left-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, has repeatedly campaigned against the channel. A look at the German Wikipedia page provides an insight into this.

But the Church hierarchy was not always happy with the broadcaster, which has more to do with its independent willfulness. Pope Benedict XVI congratulated Radio Maryja on its 20th anniversary.

The leftist opposition in Poland, but also outside, is a thorn in the side because of its Catholic and conservative positions and even more because of its influence on public opinion. The most recent attempt to silence the transmitter has just started.

According to Wirtualna Polska, a mainstream medium owned by France Telecom, a request to the Vatican Secretariat of State was sent in December 2019 on "limiting" the political positioning of Radio Maryja. The transmitter should have a purely "religious character."

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The initiators of the claim, an Adam N. and a Witek M., remain anonymous. They sent their petition to the Vatican in several languages through Canadian middlemen. Wirtualna Polska is one of the mass media, of which Radio Maryja has been attacked in the past. In 2018, a Warsaw court sentenced the online portal to apologize to P. Rydzyk for spreading false allegations.

According to La Fede Quotidiana the request to the Vatican to proceed against Radio Maryja  was treated on March 26 by Pope Francis. He asked Msgr. Roberto Cona of the Secretary of State to review the matter and prepare a response.

A central role in the new attack on the conservative radio station is played by the Polish-Canadian politician Thomas Lukaszuk who actively supported the petition against Radio Maryja. The internet portal onet.pl , with good connections to Lukaszuk, promoted the petition to the Vatican for a long time last year. Onet.pl is largely owned by Ringier Axel Springer Media AG and is comparable to Web.de and Gmx.at in the left- justification of news reporting .

Lukaszuk's father had fled to Canada from Communist Poland. In 1982 his family was also able to follow him. Thomas Lukaszuk was a member of Parliament in Alberta from 2001 to 2015. From 2010 to 2014, he was Minister of the Government of the Canadian state, including 2012/2013 as Deputy Prime Minister.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Radio Maryja (screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Media Takes the Side of Communists in Argentine War to Attack Pope

Edit: stories attempting to downplay Papa Bergoglio’s relationship to Argentina’s anti-Communist leadership during 70s and into the 80s doesn’t look very credible.  And who gets to decide it was a “dirty war”?  The allegedly conservative boulevard mag the  Daily Mail? Since when do they take the side of Communist insurgents?


Rome (kath.net/KNA) while he German media is currently whipping up a “black legend” against the newly elected Pope Francis, there are new details about the role of the former Jesuit Provincial Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983).  This is according to the periodical “peril”of an interview immediately after the Papal election on the internet site, that they had conducted already in 2010 with the former Cardinal.

In that Bergolio describes how he had gained entrance into the house of the former military dictator General Jorge Videla (87), in order to appeal for clergy who had been imprisoned and abducted by the military.  At that time the Jesuit Provincial Bergolio contacted the military chaplain who said Mass regularly in Vidal’s residence.

They arranged that the priest would claim a sudden illness and Bergolio was then  proposed as a replacement priest for the Mass in the General’s house.  The plan worked, and the Jesuit celebrated Mass with the entire Vidal family.  Finally he asked the General in a personal discussion, to appeal for the imprisoned priests.

This and other contacts to Vidal as well as to Admiral Emilio Massera would be portrayed by journalists 30 years after the events, as intimate contacts to those in power.  Bergoglio had publicly explained and founded his disposition and motives during the time of the unjust regime
 [sic]. At least twice he was a witness at a court trial to this fact, and in the “peril” interview he described further details.  Never the less, his reputation was damaged -- and in 2005 there had been adverse accusations which meant that Bergoglio would not become Pope at the Conclave.

The polemics against the Cardinal received support at that time from assertions of journalist Horacio Verbitsky, that Bergoglio is supposed to have not protected Jesuit priests Francisco Jalics and Orlando Yorio from persecution by the military.  Bergoglio contradicted, he is supposed to have warned and urged them, to bring themselves to the safety of the Provincial headquarters.  Both did not obey and decided for the path of open resistance -- and its dangers, to be arrested.  As this happened,  he appealed for them afterward.  Both were released after some months.  One of the two died in the meantime; the other one received a formal pardon.

Bergoglio comported himself in his situation like some Bishops of the Evangelical Church in the former DDR, who considered the radical ways of some pastors against the Communist regime as indeed imprudent,  but then also tried to help them, as the power of the state worked against them.  In contrast to the revelation of the misdeeds of the DDR, there is no archival evidence for support in Argentina. So in many cases it is statement against statement.

It is a fact that many Catholic Bishops in Argentina then sympathized with the military and were silent about the human rights abuses. [Good for them]  Only some of them intervened for those persecuted.   The former Jesuit Superior Bergoglio is considered, as also Nobel Peace Prize Winner and human rights activist Adolfo Perez Esquivel (81)  stressed recently,  a noteworthy exception.

[That’s why he was passionately advocating a just war for the Junta in the Falklands?]