Four cautions as crisis builds about priest-collaborators under the Communists | National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe

re: "Crises always have their peaks and valleys, and this has been a “peak week” for the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe, as it faces a new wave of revelations regarding the collaboration of priests and bishops with the dreaded secret police forces during the Communist era...[snip]...Such revelations have proved deeply painful to the Catholic church, especially in Poland, where much of its self-image in the 20th century was tied up with its heroic resistance to Communism. /As with the sexual abuse crisis in the United States, once the dam breaks, documents and accusations surface so rapidly that the media barely has time to record them, let alone sort through them carefully. In such an environment, elastic terms such as “collaboration” and “informant” tend to be recycled endlessly, giving a false impression of fixed meaning, when in fact every situation is different. /Herewith four cautions which, in an ideal world, would be packaged into every story on the current crisis – but which, under the twin pressures of time and space, are generally left unsaid..."...

hat tip: Open Book