Archbishop Andrzej Dzięga of Szczecin-Kamien, Poland. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Rome Newsroom, Feb 26, 2024 / 00:01 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Polish Archbishop Andrzej Dzięga, who has faced allegations that he ignored abuse cases in Poland.
Neither the Apostolic Nunciature of Poland, which announced the resignation on Feb. 24, nor the Holy See Press Office provided a reason for Dzięga’s resignation. The 71-year-old prelate, who has led the Archdiocese of Szczecin-Kamien since 2009, will not turn 75, the age at which canon law requires a bishop to submit his resignation to the pope, until 2027.
Dzięga published a two-page resignation letter on Feb. 24 in which he apologized to his “brother priests,” saying, “if my weaknesses, including incomplete understanding of specific circumstances, and sometimes even my ordinary human fatigue became the cause of your anxiety, I am sorry.”
The archbishop said he was resigning due to “a radical weakening of my condition,” adding that in the fall “it became obvious to me” that it was time to step down, and that the Holy Father agreed.
Bishop Zbigniew Zielinski, 59, who became bishop of the Diocese of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg in February 2023, has been appointed apostolic administrator of the Szczecin-Kamien Archdiocese, located in the northwest corner of the country, the nunciature announced.
According to a 2021 report by the Polish Catholic outlet Więź, the nunciature received four reports, from three separate individuals, alleging that Dzięga covered up cases of sexual abuse. The report noted that the complaints were submitted following the publication of Pope Francis’ 2019 motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi, which established a new norms for handling sexual abuse cases.
In 2021 the Polish television network TVN24 aired a documentary alleging that Dziega knew about abuse allegations against Father Andrzej Dymer as early as 1995 but took no action. According to Polish media, Dymer was convicted by a Church tribunal in 2008 of sexually abusing minors. Dymer appealed but died in 2021 before the appeal was adjudicated.
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ACI Africa, Mar 3, 2023 / 18:10 pm (CNA).
Dozens of people reportedly were murdered in post-election attacks on villages in Nigeria’s Benue State Wednesday, according to a diocesan official.In an exclusive intervi… […]
Nell O’Leary, managing editor of Blessed Is She. / Therese Westby
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 3, 2022 / 11:01 am (CNA).
When Nell O’Leary sat down with her team to brainstorm a new book for Catholic women, she said they felt drawn to the theme of “identity.”
“This one kept coming back, this idea of identity, of who we are as Catholic women, made in God’s image and likeness,” O’Leary, the managing editor of Blessed Is She, told CNA. This identity, she said, gets battered by the world “with all these lies that you are what you look like, you are your social media following, you are how successful you are, you are how many kids you have.”
Instead, O’Leary says, every woman is unconditionally loved as a “beloved daughter of God.”
This message is central to Made New: 52 Devotions for Catholic Women, a weekly devotional released in December. The book houses personal stories from five writers associated with Blessed Is She (BIS), a “sisterhood” of Catholic women who desire to grow in their faith through prayer and community. Each of the five — O’Leary, Leana Bowler, Brittany Calavitta, Jenna Guizar, and Liz Kelly — focus on a theme under the umbrella of identity: beheld, belong, beloved, believing, and becoming.
While their stories are different, their tone is consistent. Each writer engages the reader with the frank, casual tone of a friend who’s honest about her struggles, hopeful for the future, and, well, confident in her identity.
“I invite you to journey with me, dear sister, to walk through the next fifty-two weeks as we rediscover our value, our worth, and our identity in Our Lord’s eyes,” Guizar, the founder of BIS, writes in the book’s opening. “He is waiting for you and me, and He desires to be in relationship with us. All it takes is a response to His call: yes.”
Each week begins with a short reflection or personal story from one of the writers and concludes with a scripture passage and two questions for the reader to ask herself. Along the way, artwork interrupts the text to greet readers with dusty, muted colors and shapes. The rose-gold cover impresses a feminine touch, along with a pink ribbon bookmark. Leaves and plants adorn the pages, suggesting growth and life made new.
Interior of Made New. Therese Westby
A saint’s calling
If readers come away remembering one thing, O’Leary wants them to believe and remember that “there’s no one way, cookie-cutter way, to become a saint.”
“God is calling you personally, through the circumstances in your life, through the challenges, through the blessings, to grow in holiness in who you are and where you are,” she said. “And to compare yourself to other women and feel like you can’t measure up is simply not where you want to put your energies.”
Instead, she said, God is calling each woman — in her particular, unique life — to become a saint.
Every woman is different, something that the five writers themselves demonstrate. According to O’Leary, they are not all just a “bunch of young moms.” One struggles with infertility, another married later in life, one started a family before marriage, and another has no children.
“I think that however old the reader is, they will find part of their own story,” O’Leary said. “When we write [our stories], we want the reader to actually be able to contemplate and ponder… to kind of find their own story. So you’re not just consuming another person’s content, you’re actually looking at yourself too.”
One story particularly moved O’Leary (even though she compared picking her favorite to “picking a favorite flower”). She pointed to writer Liz Kelly, who shares with readers her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis toward the end of the book.
While Kelly originally “thought that meant her role would become really small,” God “used her in that time and in that diagnosis to broadcast his message even further than she thought,” O’Leary summarized.
She added, “I think the reason I love that story so much is because where we see limitations, God just sees more opportunities for grace.”
Unconditional love
A theme in the book that O’Leary herself touches on is God’s unconditional love — that he loves you as you are right now, regardless of what you do or don’t do, regardless of how your family or friends treat you, regardless of your past or future. He loves you.
“I suppose people in general struggle with the idea of unconditional love because it’s so rarely manifest in our human interaction,” O’Leary said of accepting God’s love. “And so, because the human level of relationship in our lives are fraught with other imperfect people, to really trust in and experience God’s love takes this trust and this faith.”
Her first piece of advice for women who doubt God’s love or think they aren’t good enough is to visit the confessional.
“Get all those embarrassing sins off your chest,” she said. “The priest has heard it all … you can go behind the screen.”
“It’s nothing that’s too embarrassing to bring to the sacrament and really unload yourself of the burden of all those sins and experience God’s grace filling you,” she added. God’s unconditional love can get “so shrouded and clouded by my own, my own humanity, my own mistakes, my own sinfulness.”
Community and Covid
Another topic in the book — and a priority for Blessed Is She as a whole — is community. O’Leary addressed the challenges of community, particularly during the pandemic.
“Living in a global pandemic, so many things being more online, we just see that highlights reel…those drive those envy twinges of, ‘Her life looks perfect. She doesn’t have my struggles,’” she said. “Really puts in wedges in our sisterhood and we need our sisterhood.”
“When we can’t be together, it just starts to look like everyone has it together,” she added. “We don’t.”
O’Leary advised women to read the free daily devotions offered by Blessed Is She. And delete social media apps off of their phones, even if just for the weekend.
“I know that our phones and the internet are wonderful for connecting us, but they’re also really toxic for making it feel more lonely,” she said. “Live the life that’s in front of you.”
The personal
O’Leary talked about her personal life and her own struggle with identity. The fourth of five children, she said she grew up surrounded by high-achieving parents and siblings. While she thought that one day she might have a family, she worked toward becoming an attorney. She ended up marrying her “law school love” and worked as an attorney. Then, she became a stay-at-home mom.
“Realizing that I had hung so much on my identity being what I did, and what the world could see and applaud, that becoming a mom and then eventually staying at home with our kids,” she said. “It’s such a hidden life.”
“The children are not cheering you on, ‘You did a great job!’ there’s no affirmation, there’s no feedback other than the deep satisfaction I guess, that no one went to the ER,” she added.
The experience changed her.
“What I realized that I had to have a big mentality shift from, I’m not what I do and I’m not what I accomplish and I’m not even how my children behave,” she said. “That really, in these hidden moments in prayer with God, to say, ‘I know I’m your beloved daughter. I know I’m made in your image and likeness.’”
Eucharistic Adoration at Lucas Oil Stadium during the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana. July 17-21,2024. / Credit: Jonah McKeown/CNA
CNA Newsroom, Jul 27, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The National Eucharistic Congress which… […]
7 Comments
If Bergoglio accepted the Polish archbishop’s resignation for ignoring abuse, why doesn’t he have the honesty and decency to submit his own since he has repeatedly done the same thing? Utter hypocrisy.
When will Pope Francis accept his own resignation for his ignoring of Zanchetta, Barros, Rupnik and about ten other abusers? Apparently if you are Pope Francis fan, you get promoted rather than punished.
Francis is inconsistent in his application of justice. If he accepts the resignation of this Polish bishop because of his negligence over abuse by those under his jurisdiction, why shouldn’t Francis also resign since he has a well-documented abuser – Rupnik – operating as a priest in his own diocese (Rome). Many of us no longer have any confidence in this papacy to do the right thing.
Supposedly a very orthodox/conservative bishop, popular and much liked by his people; the case of the abusive priest is somewhat convoluted, and conveniently put as a possible motive for the archbishop resignation
If Bergoglio accepted the Polish archbishop’s resignation for ignoring abuse, why doesn’t he have the honesty and decency to submit his own since he has repeatedly done the same thing? Utter hypocrisy.
When will Pope Francis accept his own resignation for his ignoring of Zanchetta, Barros, Rupnik and about ten other abusers? Apparently if you are Pope Francis fan, you get promoted rather than punished.
They didn’t ignore it. By looking like they ignored it, they actually ADVANCED it.
Francis is inconsistent in his application of justice. If he accepts the resignation of this Polish bishop because of his negligence over abuse by those under his jurisdiction, why shouldn’t Francis also resign since he has a well-documented abuser – Rupnik – operating as a priest in his own diocese (Rome). Many of us no longer have any confidence in this papacy to do the right thing.
Supposedly a very orthodox/conservative bishop, popular and much liked by his people; the case of the abusive priest is somewhat convoluted, and conveniently put as a possible motive for the archbishop resignation
When will the Bergoglio tender his own resignation for refusing to stop the abuse of which he was fully aware in Buenos Aires?
The No longer Deaf nor Dumb victims of Bergoglioism are less worthy than Polish boys of public compunction??
There are some things that we do not need to know. Perhaps we would be better off worrying about the state of our own souls!