POLAND
Vatican Insider

The presentation of a report on Church finances is just days away but the Country has not yet unravelled the nub of the financing issue

Marek Lehnert
Rome

Even though for fourteen years Poland has had an agreement that is almost identical to the one Italy had in 1984, it has not yet unravelled the issue of funding for the Catholic Church operating on the Country. Until yesterday, both State and Church utilized legal tools dating back to the People’s Republic whose memory would be best forgotten. Firstly the Ecclesiastical Fund (Fundusz kościelny) formed in 1950, in theory to help the so-called patriot-priests, but in practice to finance the opposition to the Church and its employees, guilty of being faithful to the Pope and the Vatican. The high clerics themselves have highlighted this when solicited by the notice given by the second government led by…