Vatican blames old foes for Polish church attacks

VATICAN CITY, Jan 7 (Reuters) The Vatican today hit back at its Polish critics after Warsaw's new archbishop resigned in a spying scandal, saying the Catholic Church had been the victim of a vendetta from its old communist foes.

Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus resigned today after admitting to spying for Poland's former communist regime -- conduct that ''gravely compromised his authority,'' the Vatican's top spokesman said.

Father Federico Lombardi said the episode was a ''moment of great suffering for the Church'' but that Wielgus was not the first and probably not the last Polish Church figure to be attacked on the basis of documents from the communist era.

''The wave of attacks on the Catholic Church in Poland, rather than a sincere quest for transparency and truth, has many aspects of a strange alliance between the persecutors of the past and their adversaries and a vendetta on their part,'' Lombardi told Vatican Radio.

The incident is seen as a major embarrassment for Poland's powerful Catholic Church and for the Vatican which appointed Wielgus to the post just a month ago and stood by him while the allegations grew.

The Church was a key support for Poland's pro-democracy Solidarity movement during the 1980s but historians say as many as 10 percent of the clergy could have cooperated with the Soviet-backed regime.

In his statement, Lombardi added that the Church was not afraid of the truth and urged followers to pray for and encourage the Polish Church at his time.

''We hope the Polish Church will know how to live through and overcome this difficult period with courage and clear-headedness,'' he said.

REUTERS SY VC1902