A Polish cardinal has defended his country's Supreme Court against current government reform attempts, in the first direct statement of support by a Church leader in the long-running dispute.
"No one imagined the future of this Court and its personnel would be the subject of such deep concern and unease - but also of deep hope that wisdom would triumph despite everything", said Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw. "I pray to God nothing bad will happen - that none of the foundations of the tripartite division of power which serves the state and humanity will be shaken".
Preaching in Warsaw's St Jan cathedral for the centenary of the Supreme Court's foundation on the eve of Poland's 1918 independence, during a Mass attended by its chairman, Malgorzata Gersdorf, the cardinal said the Court had unexpectedly found itself the focus of "huge interest". He added that Catholics should stand ready, in the steps of the Church's martyrs, to be "capable, ready and strong to defend their convictions and principles".
"We must sometimes suffer to save what must be saved - which means this Court's mission, detachment and independence", Cardinal Nycz said. "No one can take away its internal freedom, nor the coherence which should always form part of this freedom".
Poland's centre-right Law and Justice (PIS) party pledged sweeping reforms to Supreme Court and National Judicial Council after winning an election landslide in October 2015, arguing the replacement of judges and officials was needed to ensure greater accountability. However, the legal package sparked protests by the opposition Civic Platform and sanction threats from the European Union, where PIS's former opponent, Donald Tusk, is now European Council president. The reforms are currently being reworked by the government of premier Beata Szydlo after a partial July veto by President Andrzej Duda.
Judge Gersdorf has previously criticised the Polish Church's silence over the court reforms, warning their implementation would jeopardise the division of executive, legislative and judicial powers in Poland, and accusing Church leaders of being "closely linked to the present government". Meanwhile, Poland's lay-run Catholic Intelligentsia Club has also urged Church leaders to speak out, insisting the changes would compromise civil rights and democratic values enshrined in Catholic teaching.
However, in an August interview with the Church's Catholic information agency (KAI), Archbishop Slawoj Glodz of Gdansk vigorously backed the reforms, insisting "the majority of society" was firmly "on the Government's side". Poland's pro-opposition Gazeta Wyborcza daily said Cardinal Nycz's homily remarks were a sign of "growing divisions" over the reforms within the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Loading ...
