c. 2007 Religion News Service

Pope Names New Archbishop for Embattled Warsaw Post

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has named Kazimierz Nycz as the new archbishop of Warsaw, Poland, less than two months after the pope’s first choice resigned over revelations that he had collaborated with the country’s communist-era secret police.

The resignation of Stanislaw Wielgus on Jan. 7 provoked a scandal in Poland, where the Catholic Church was for many years the only major institution not under the control of the communist regime.

Nycz, 57, has been bishop of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg, a northern Polish city on the coast of the Baltic sea, since 2004. According to a recent book, “Priests and the Security Service,” secret police files show that Nycz resisted all attempts to recruit him, and eight years of surveillance failed to turn up any information that would have made him vulnerable to blackmail.

The new appointment is the latest step in the Vatican’s attempt to close a painful episode. On Feb. 12, Benedict wrote to Wielgus acknowledging the “exceptional circumstances” of his service under communism and commending his “profound sensitivity” in deciding to resign.

“I express the desire that you may resume your activity at the service of Christ, in whatever way proves possible,” Benedict wrote.

Wielgus could yet remain the focus of controversy. On Saturday (Feb. 3), the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita published charges that the former archbishop covered up cases of sex abuse by priests under his authority.

_ Francis X. Rocca

Haggard’s Colorado Church Cuts 44 Staff Positions

(RNS) The Colorado megachurch formerly headed by evangelical leader Ted Haggard has laid off 44 staffers, citing a 10 percent decline in revenue since Haggard resigned after a gay sex and drug scandal.

The cuts, which include a range of administrators, custodians and nursery workers, amount to about 12 percent of New Life Church’s paid staff, the Denver Post reported.

Ross Parsley, New Life’s interim senior pastor, said revenue declined after Haggard was fired over charges that he had bought methamphetamine and paid a Denver man for sex.

Haggard has since resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and he and his wife have moved out of the church’s vacinity.

“We were kind of living on the edge,” Parsley said at a question-and-answer session following an evening service on Sunday (March 4), according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. “That’s good for everybody until a rainy day comes, and now we’re in the rain. We certainly can’t keep using money we don’t have.”

Associate Pastor Rob Brendle added that the layoffs had been a “painful process.”

“The reality is, we ask our people to be faithful stewards of their money and (live) within their means. We have to do the same,” Brendle said, according to the Denver Post.

Parsley called the restructuring a “holy process” and explained some positions would be consolidated while others could be replaced by volunteers.

“We recognize a church is an institution of trust, and that trust has been bruised,” Brendle said. “So we’re committed to serving people faithfully and earning it back.”

_ Melissa Stee

Civil Rights Cold Cases Reopened

WASHINGTON (RNS) About 100 suspicious deaths from the civil rights era are under new investigation by federal law enforcement, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced.

The FBI and the Justice Department compiled the list from dusty case files around the South as well as referrals from civil rights groups that have long tracked deaths that appeared to have a racial motive but were never properly investigated or prosecuted.

“To those individuals who committed these crimes and lived with guilty consciences for these many years, our message should be clear: You have not gotten away with anything. We are still on your trail,”’ Gonzales said.

Although technology has improved, officials were careful not to promise murder convictions, and admitted some would be nearly impossible to solve.

It could be their last chance.

Doug Jones, a Birmingham, Ala., lawyer with experience in 40-year-old cases of racial violence, applauded the renewed effort but warned the clock is ticking as the perpetrators die off and witnesses’ memories fade.

Jones, who won convictions six years ago against two of Birmingham’s 1963 church bombers, was also unconvinced that guilty consciences will prompt people to come forward. There were days that the church bombing witness room at the grand jury looked like a geriatric ward, he said, and many of them would hunker down and not divulge what they knew.

“We brought tons of people to the grand jury, some of whom I’m absolutely convinced committed perjury, saying they didn’t know about something. Could I prove it? No way,” Jones said. “But if there was ever a case for people to step forward to do some reconciliation or right a wrong, it was one when four innocent girls were killed in a bomb in a church. And guess what? We didn’t have anybody like that.”

Still, the 100 new cases, including about a dozen getting first priority, are a sizable and worthy commitment from law enforcement to try and bring justice to a region that suffered without it for decades, he said.

Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller declined to identify cases already under way, but officials said that once they believe public attention could assist in finding witnesses, they will announce them.

“Sometimes an innocuous, small bit of information can be crucial to breaking these decades-old cases,” Gonzales said. “A secret harbored for many years can be a piece of evidence we need to make our case.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which built a monument in 1989 to 40 people who died in the struggle for racial equality, provided a list of 76 suspicious deaths to the FBI that were not resolved.

“There are a lot of stones to turn over,” said SPLC President Richard Cohen, who joined Gonzales and Mueller for the Feb. 27 announcement. “It is wrong to give families false hope, but it’s right to say to them that people still care.”

_ Mary Orndorff

Quote of the Day: Presidential Candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

“I have to confess that I did seek dispensation from Reverend Armstrong to come because you know, I’m a Methodist. And I’m in one of those mixed marriages.”

_ Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., speaking at Friends Baptist Church in Selma, Ala. Former president Bill Clinton, her husband, is a Baptist.

KRE/LF END RNS