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- Subject: [eejh][News: Poland] Walesa denounces Radio Maryja
- From: "Charles Chotkowski" <chotkowski@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:02:39 -0500
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Ecumenical News International
Daily News Service
08 March 2005
Polish Solidarity hero Lech Walesa denounces Catholic radio
station
ENI-05-0152
By Jonathan Luxmoore
Warsaw, 8 March (ENI)--Poland's former president, Lech Walesa, a
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, has accused the country's largest
Roman Catholic radio station of stirring up hatred through its
broadcasts and has urged the authorities to remove its operating
licence.
''This radio threatens our young democracy and Poland's image in
the world,'' said the leader of Solidarity, which battled in the
1980s against the then communist rulers. ''I hope the authorities
will see this threat and do something, rather than just
monitoring it - which, despite claims to the contrary, has had no
effect whatever on the radio's programmes.''
In an ''Open Letter to Bishops and Faithful of the Catholic
Church,'' dated 23 February, Walesa, a staunch Catholic, said the
station, Radio Maryja, was ''stoking political conflicts'' and
''lowering the tone of public debates,'' as well as creating
divisions in the Roman Catholic church.
However, the head of the Polish church's Mass Media Council,
Archbishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz, defended the radio's right to
''deal with social and political issues'' and accused the former
president of ''acting emotionally".
''Radio Maryja is a school of evangelism, catechism and formation
- everyone agrees with this,'' Archbishop Glodz told Poland's
Catholic information agency (KAI) on 6 March. ''There are extreme
options in all the media, not only in Radio Maryja. This is what
pluralism means.''
Founded in 1991 by the Torun-based Redemptorist order, Radio
Maryja describes itself as ''the Catholic voice in our homes,''
and has attracted frequent controversy for nationalistic
broadcasts to its listeners, many of whom are said to be elderly.
The station has in the past even accused Walesa of
''collaborating'' with Poland's communist regime, and criticised
the alleged influence of Jews in Polish politics. In 2002,
Poland's Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference set up a four-man
team to ensure the radio, which campaigned against Poland's 2004
accession to the European Union, reflected church teaching.
However, in his letter, Walesa said he would demand the
withdrawal of the station's charitable status as a ''social
broadcaster'' and the resignation of its priest-director, Tadeusz
Rydzyk.
''Radio Maryja contradicts the Christian system of values through
its anti-Semitic and xenophobic programme contents,'' Walesa
said. ''This is reason enough for depriving it of the benefits of
using a status it doesn't deserve and a licence it violates.''
[393 words]
All articles (c) Ecumenical News International
Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and
provided ENI is acknowledged as the source.
Ecumenical News International
PO Box 2100
CH - 1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
www.eni.ch
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