More on Poland

This is what I had in mind when I added a cautionary note for this post. Rod Dreher:

I mentioned to my companions last night that the late Father Wlodzimierz Zatorski, a highly esteemed Benedictine (who died last year of Covid), had affirmed to me that the young Catholics telling me that Poland could become Ireland in a decade, regarding Catholic collapse, were on to something. I had asked the Benedictine, while visiting famed Tyniec Abbey, what the main problem is. He said, “the vainglory of the bishops.”

I asked the Pole last night to explain what the late priest-monk meant. The Pole, who is in his twenties, told me that among his circle of friends here in Warsaw, he is the only one who still goes to mass. Two years ago when I first met this man, that was not the case. He went on to explain that many Poles are deeply offended by how openly political many of the clergy are, especially the bishops. He said the exposure of sexual abuse scandals in the clergy devastated many people. The harshness of the bishops’ language against gays and lesbians has put a lot of people off, even as stories about priests and bishops having secret gay lives have come to light. Too many bishops and priests, he said, rest on pious cliches and sentimental appeals to the legacy of Pope St. John Paul II, instead of bringing the Gospel to deal meaningfully with the problems and challenges of contemporary life. Overall, my Polish interlocutor said that the country’s Catholics have come to see that there is a large gap between what the Church claims to be, and what its clergy is — and that outrages people. The fact, he went on, that many in the Polish clergy, especially bishops, are so caught up in clericalism, only makes it harder for the bishops and clergy to grasp their role, and to repent.