FR WOJCIECH GIERTYCH OP, the London-born son of a prominent Polish politician, has been named the new Theologian of the Papal Household, a post that makes him, in layman?s terms, the theological sub-editor of the Pope?s writings and speeches.
Benedict XVI named the 54-year-old Dominican moral theologian to the prestigious post on 1 December to replace 83-year-old Cardinal Georges Cottier OP, a Dominican philosopher from Switzerland who has served as papal theologian since 1989.
Fr Giertych, a member of the Polish province of the Order of Preachers since 1975, is currently serving as special assistant (?socius?) to the Master of the Order for intellectual life at his order?s Rome headquarters.
The multi-lingual theologian has been on the general council there since 1998 and has been teaching moral theology at the University of St Thomas (the ?Angelicum?), also in Rome, since 1994.
The newly named papal theologian is a member of a well-known, political family in Poland that spans three generations. He is the son of the late Jedrzej Giertych (1903-1992), a staunch Polish nationalist who fled his native country after the Second World War (which he spent in German prison camps) and settled in London. A prolific author of many books, some of his political writings have been criticised as anti-Semitic.
Fr Giertych?s older brother Maciej, 69, a papal-appointed observer at the 1987 Synod of Bishops on the laity, is a Euro-parliamentarian for the conservative League of Polish Families party. Mr Giertych?s 34-year-old son Roman, a member of the Polish Parliament, is chairman of the right-wing party, which describes itself as being inspired by Catholic teaching. The party militantly opposes abortion, homosexual rights and feminism. Its critics have called it ultra-nationalist and fiercely anti-European Union.
Wojciech Giertych was born in London in 1951, six years after his parents and four other siblings emigrated from Warsaw. He, his brother, and seven sisters (two of whom became religious sisters) grew up in England. After finishing his schooling at St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, north London, in 1970 he left for Poland to study history at the University of Poznan where his brother was already residing.
He obtained Polish citizenship, while still remaining a British subject, and in the course of his studies met the Dominican Friars. He entered the order?s Polish novitiate in Poznan in 1975 and after theological studies in Krakow he was ordained in 1981. Fr Giertych earned a licentiate in spiritual theology in 1983 and a doctorate in moral theology in 1989, both at the Angelicum. He is a former student master in Krakow and professor of moral theology in Poland and Rome.
Fr Giertych is expected to move inside the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican in early January when he begins his indefinite tenure as Theologian of the Papal Household.
He will also be consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the International Theological Commission, and the Congregation for Saints.
Robert Mickens, Rome