The dramatic resignation of Stanisław Wielgus as the Archbishop of Warsaw, just hours before he was to be ceremoniously installed in the post, has triggered an unprecedented crisis in Poland's Roman Catholic Church.

The scandal has shocked the faithful, strained relations with the Vatican and thrown new light on collaboration by some priests with the security services during an era when the Church was bastion of opposition to the former communist regime.

Just before the planned Mass marking his official installation at noon on Jan. 7, Wielgus read out a brief statement at St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw to announce the resignation from office which he submitted to Pope Benedict XVI. "After profound reflection and assessment of my personal situation, in line with canon 401, clause 2 of Canon Law, I hereby offer Your Holiness my resignation from the office of the metropolitan archbishop of Warsaw," Wielgus wrote in a letter to the Vatican.

The reaction from the faithful gathered inside the church had no precedent in Poland. Cries of "No!" "Shame!" and "Stay with us!" rang out. The priests who celebrated the mass repeatedly appealed to the faithful not to disturb the ceremony. The only person shown applauding the statement in television coverage was President Lech Kaczyński, seated in the front row.

A statement from the Papal Mission in Poland was read out next, announcing the resignation had been accepted. The pope reappointed the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Józef Glemp, as temporary head of the Warsaw archdiocese. Wielgus had been due to succeed Glemp in the post.

The statement cited the excerpt from Canon Law which the archbishop had mentioned: "A diocesan bishop who due to an illness or another serious reason is unable to properly perform his service in office is urgently requested to submit his resignation from the office." This means that Wielgus's resignation was not his own idea, but he had yielded to a decision by the Vatican, which asked him to resign.

Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, the archbishop of Cracow who for over a quarter of a century had been the secretary and personal friend of Pope John Paul II, said the following in a comment about the startling resignation of Wielgus: "Let us respect the archbishop's decision and, first and foremost, the decision by the Holy Father, Benedict XVI. This is an order and recommendation for us. This is what the Holy Father has resolved, for which we are thankful."

The presidium of the Conference of the Episcopate of Poland said on the evening of Jan. 7 that Wielgus "has voluntarily resigned from the office he had been entrusted with because of grave accusations with which he has been confronted; he deserves words of praise for his decision."

In the statement, Conference chairman Archbishop Józef Michalik, deputy chairman Archbishop Stanisław G±decki and secretary Bishop Piotr Libera asked the media to "respect Archbishop Wielgus's decision and avoid any over-interpretation of this event which would depart from the truth." The signatories emphasized that Wielgus resigned and the pope accepted the resignation for the sake of the Church in Poland. "The Church in Poland today needs to take a humble look at its past, present and future in truth," the statement read.

Father Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the Holy See, issued a special comment in which he said Wielgus's decision to resign from office was the right one. "The conduct of Archbishop Wielgus in the past years of the communist regime has seriously damaged his stature, also with regards to the faithful," Lombardi said on Radio Vatican. "Consequently, regardless of his humble and moving plea for forgiveness, his resignation from the office of the metropolitan archbishop of Warsaw and its acceptance by His Holiness seems to be the appropriate solution in the face of the confusion which has unfolded in the country."

Lombardi also said that "the case of Archbishop Wielgus is not the first and it probably will not be the last attack on people of the Church which is based on documents of the Security Service of the former regime."

Before all the above statements and comments saw the light of day, Cardinal Glemp delivered a firm and at times biting homily in Wielgus's defense. Glemp said Wielgus had been tried "on the basis of scraps [of paper] and copies of copies of [photocopied] documents as evidence.

"It is hard to think about the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) in all seriousness, it is the oracle and source of information about citizens," Glemp added.

Earlier, the IPN wrote on its website that the Holy See had not requested it for access to files about Wielgus, nor had Glemp or any of his representatives done so.

Glemp did not hesitate to use the most dramatic comparisons appealing to Christians. "St. Peter was not a flawless, ideal human being, especially when he renounced Jesus, and yet Jesus entrusted Peter with the Church," Glemp said in a homily which the faithful interrupted with applause a dozen times.

The Wielgus scandal broke out shortly after the pope officially appointed him Dec. 6. The radical right-wing Gazeta Polska weekly wrote that for a long time since the late 1960s, Wielgus had been a voluntary, secret collaborator of the communist Security Service (SB). Initially, the magazine did not publish any documents to back its claims. On Dec. 21, the Vatican issued an unprecedented statement expressing full support for Wielgus. In the meantime, Wielgus consistently denied his connections with SB.

Two separate committees were set up to clarify the matter. One was commissioned by the Polish Episcopate, while Janusz Kochanowski, the Commissioner for Civil Rights, sent the other one to the IPN. The two committees examined documents about the archbishop and the findings were unambiguous and shocking to many. According to Kochanowski, the available files left no doubt that in 1973-1978, Father Wielgus had consciously been a secret collaborator of SB and the intelligence services of communist Poland. It was impossible, however, to determine the actual extent of the collaboration and assess its effects and the harm it did to individuals. Indirectly, the documents also indicated that Wielgus had collaborated with the SB in Lublin in 1967.

The 68-page Wielgus file was soon made public, while Gazeta Polska published it on its website. The documents contain two written commitments to collaborate with the intelligence services of People's Poland. The two "collaboration contracts" are signed with the code names "Adam Wysocki" (Sept. 28, 1973) and "Grey" (Feb. 23, 1978). Another document defines Wielgus as an "operational contact" of the intelligence services. The files do not however contain a single report written personally by Wielgus, there are only SB officers' notes from interviews with him. The only document written by Wielgus is a note titled "Research Plans as Part of the A. Humboldt Scholarship" from September 1973.

The Church History Committee, appointed by the Episcopate, started work on IPN documents Jan. 2. Having examined the files, the committee concluded there were a lot of documents to confirm Wielgus's readiness to intentionally become a secret collaborator of the security services. The documents indicated the collaboration had taken place. In a statement, the committee remarked that the Episcopate had officially forbidden collaboration with SB.

"The IPN files contain opinions from intelligence officers with reference to SB materials which indirectly show that the activities of Father Stanisław Wielgus in the Lublin community may have harmed different persons in the Church," the statement reads. "As for collaboration with the communist intelligence services, the document analysis does not allow an unequivocal conclusion to be reached that Father Stanisław Wielgus did harm to anyone."

Despite the explicit evidence, the archbishop continued his line of denying collaboration and questioning the trustworthiness of IPN documents. He did admit that an intelligence officer, with "yells and threats" had made him sign a declaration of collaboration with the intelligence services before he left for Munich in 1978. Wielgus denied having signed any declarations of collaboration with the SB and said he had never done any harm to anybody.

"I do not want to excuse myself," Wielgus said in a statement. "I know I should have not maintained any contacts with the SB. I deeply regret making the foreign trips which caused the contacts. But at the time, I believed it was my duty to conduct valuable research and acquire education for the sake of the Church."

Still, a few days later and less than 48 hours before his planned installation as metropolitan bishop of Warsaw, Wielgus changed tactics and in a special address, he admitted the mistake he had made years earlier, expressing his remorse. He also regretted denying collaboration with the secret services in communist Poland. "Today I confess before you the mistake I made years ago," Wielgus wrote in the address, which priests read in Polish churches Jan. 6. "If you accept me, which I am asking you for with my heart filled with contrition, I shall be your brother who wants to unite and not divide, who wants to pray and unite people in the Church, a Church of saints and sinners, a Church which consists of all of us."

The overdue remorse did not prevent the Holy See from making its decision. According to unofficial sources in the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI was extremely irritated by the fact that the charges against his appointee, revealed in the media, had been kept from him. Some experts on Vatican affairs say the pope will possibly appoint a team to put matters in the Polish church back in order-especially since Benedict XVI is still facing the task of appointing, sooner or later, a new head of the Warsaw archdiocese.