Poland's Catholic bishops began their three-day spring meeting in Warsaw on Tuesday – exactly 100 years after the first plenary session of the Polish Bishops' Conference.
On the occasion of the anniversary, the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin also visits the 382. Plenary Assembly. On Wednesday evening, the highest-ranking member of Pope Francis' staff will celebrate a festive service, which Poland's President Andrzej Duda is also expected to attend.
At the meeting, the bishops will once again address the ie of sexual abuse in the Church. The conference chairman, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, will report on his conversations with victims of abuse, according to the bishops' conference. According to the letter, further steps for the protection of children and young people in church and society are to be discussed.
New election of the executive committee
Further topics are among other things the youth welfare and the 100. Anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Polish state. The latter had been newly founded in November 1918 after 123 years of foreign rule.
On Thursday, the election of the new board of the Bishops' Conference is on the agenda. Church statute allows re-election of Gadecki, 69, archbishop of Poznan in western Poland, and his deputy, Krakow Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski, 69. It would be their second five-year term in each case. With 155 members, the Polish Bishops' Conference is one of the largest in Europe. About 33 million of Poland's 38.4 million people belong to the Catholic Church, according to the National Statistics Office.