Much to the irritation of Poland’s Roman Catholic church, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, the controversial owner of the ultra-conservative Radio Maryja, has made another political intervention – this time asking Poles to take into account the Smolensk plane crash investigation when casting a vote in this month’s presidential elections.
“The Smolensk tragedy has not been investigated properly.[…] Think about that when you cast your vote!,” Father Rydzyk appealed to the faithful during a mass at the Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity and St. Anne in the northern town of Prostynia.
Rydzyk – whose newspaper Nasz Dziennik has been leading with stories for the past few weeks on suspected, alleged and speculated cover-ups of the investigation of the April 10 crash, which killed many of Poland’s top military brass and politicians – warned that we cannot rely on the Russian investigators as this is being led by “Putin and the KGB”.
The latest remarks by Father Rydzyk has exasperated the Roman Catholic establishment in Poland, who have warned him many times not to make political statements.
“Radio Maryja is a serious problem,” top cardinal, Jozef Glemp told Newsweek this week and added that the radio station from the northern city of Torun should be run by someone else.
Cardinal Glemp said that Father Rydzyk is very smart when it comes to financial matters because most of his media enterprises are registered with the Redemptorists church. But Rydzyk also indicated that the Roman Catholic church in Poland has no right to pry into his business affairs. “When I asked him about the status of TV Trwam, he led me to understand that a cardinal has no right to be interested in that,” said Glemp. (mg/pg)
Sources: Newsweek, PAP
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