Church validates a miracle, Poles crushed by banks, the ticking bomb of property restitution.
Weeklies reviewed by Krysia Kolosowska.
Does the Church believe in miracles? – asks Newsweek Poland. The matter became the focus of public attention after a special Catholic Church commission declared that the transformation of the holy host into human heart tissue, that occurred in a church in Sokolka, eastern Poland, happened without human interference. 'This is a lot. This is almost like admitting that a miracle really happened in Sokolka,' says Newsweek.
The commissions’ decision is a sensation not only because of what it implies but also because of how fast it was announced. Church institutions which examine miracles tend to drag their feet with giving a verdict for decades or even centuries. The most recent decision concerning a miracle in Poland was taken 100 years after it had happened while the 'Sokolka miracle' happened a year ago. During holy mass in St Anthony’s church, the priest accidentally dropped the holy host, placing it, as required by church rules, into a special vessel with water. Later, the priest discovered that the vessel contained a piece of human heart tissue. The matter will now be debated in the Vatican. Newsweek says there are a dozen places in Poland where miracles, which have not been confirmed by the Church, happen and where 'self-styled visionaries' operate.
Crushed by banks - Tygodnik Powszechny looks at the plight of Poles who have lost everything because they could not pay back their bank credit. More than a million people in Poland are struggling with more than a six month backlog of unpaid credit installments. About 100,000 have at least ten credits each to repay. Many debtors are victims of temptations they cannot resist. But there are many who are victims of the banking system, like Roman Sklepowicz, who established an association of people whom banks have driven to bankruptcy, often through actions bordering on illegal.
Sklepowicz returned from emigration in the 1990s, in the middle of an investment boom with a plan to build the first shopping mall in the city. Instead, he went bankrupt. The mechanism was simple: the crediting bank, which had approved progress in construction without reservations, suddenly refused to grant the last installment of the credit and eventually took over the entire property. The Consumer Banking Arbitration scheme, set up by Poland under the pressure of the EU, has, so far, dealt with 7,000 disputes, a half of which have been won by consumers.
Przekroj takes up the still-unsolved problem of the restitution of property seized from rightful owners under communist rule in Poland. Though Poland embraced democracy twenty years ago, no law concerning the issue has materialized.
In Europe, the only other country which has failed to deal with the problem is Belarus. The weekly says that, between 1944 and 1962, the communist government confiscated houses, factories, shops, drugstores, parks, farm land, forests from Poles, Jews, Cashubian minorities, and Lemko minorities. According to an alliance grouping former owners and their heirs, the value of property that was seized totals 85 billion zloty, over 20 billion euro, or three and a half times more than the government expects to obtain from privatization in 2010.
Under the restitution law, drafted last year, former owners and their heirs can claim back 20 percent of the value of the property lost in the 1944-1962 period. The claims would total an estimated 20 billion zloty. To obtain funds for this purpose, the government could issue treasury bonds. But discussion on this concept and work on the restitution law was suspended when the blackjack affair erupted in Poland.
Polityka is concerned over the way EU aid funds for the Polish farming sector are distributed. Instead of supporting big farms, the money has been channeled to small ones, sustaining the fragmentation of the farming sector. Politicians have concentrated on alleviating poverty in the countryside, with the result being the consolidation of a syndrome the weekly dubs 'acquired helplessness.'
Wprost reports that actor Nicolas Cage is facing up to even three years in prison for tax evasion, having failed to pay over 6 million US dollars to the government. Poles owe the treasury a total of over 20 billion zloty or more than 7 billion dollars in unpaid taxes. This is about 1 billion zloty more than in 2007. The number of firms whose debt in tax dues has exceeded 1 million zloty is on the rise. There is also a thriving grey zone, which constitutes almost 30 percent of themPolish GDP. Tax evaders are usually given a fine, though this crime carries a penalty of up to two years in prison.
Related stories:
Miracle at Sokolka: this is serious, priest says , thenews.pl 15.10.2009
Religious miracle in eastern Poland? , thenews.pl 12.10.2009