The Vatican secretary of state has praised the Polish Church's traditional closeness to Rome as key to its survival under hostile regimes, in a speech marking the centenary of the nation's conference of bishops and diplomatic ties with the Vatican.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin told the bishops: "Your indispensable task now is to uphold this heritage, preserving and strengthening it as a rich legacy, so Poland's Christian identity will have not only a past and present, but also a future."
In a March 13 address to the bishops' plenary, the cardinal noted the Polish bishops' first 1919 assembly had been chaired by Mgr Achille Ratti, the future Pope Pius XI, who was Vatican representative at the time, and had heralded a Polish tradition of "communion with the Petrine see and faithfulness to the bishop of Rome," which reflected the key Catholic principle of "unity in diversity".
