Speaking at a press conference in the eastern city of Lublin on Wednesday, Sikorski said that while the Polish foreign ministry respects the Concordat, an agreement regulating relations between Poland and the Vatican, it expects bishops to stay out of partisan politics.
"If a bishop wants to engage in politics, he should take off his cassock and join the Law and Justice party," said Sikorski, referring to Poland’s right-wing opposition party.
He was responding to recent public comments by bishops Antoni Długosz and Wiesław Mering, which the government has formally protested to the Holy See.
He also urged Church leaders to use their freedom of speech responsibly.
“There was a time when the Church spoke with the voice of the whole society, and was respected even by non-believers. That is no longer the case when it represents only one side of the political conflict,” Sikorski said.
Although the Church remains influential, its support for nationalist and conservative causes has drawn increasing criticism from more secular and liberal segments of society.
On Tuesday, the Polish foreign ministry submitted an official note of protest to Javier Domingo Fernández González, the head of protocol at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.
The note expressed “outrage” at what it described as “unacceptable statements” by the two Polish bishops, who it said were acting in their capacity as representatives of the Polish Bishops’ Conference.
'Open support for nationalist movements'
According to the ministry, their remarks “undermine good Polish-German relations, defame the government, and express open support for nationalist movements.”
Bishop Mering, speaking on Saturday during a Mass for pilgrims affiliated with Radio Maryja, a conservative Catholic media outlet, claimed that Poland is governed by "political gangsters" and "people who describe themselves as Germans."
He invoked an 18th-century quote by poet Wacław Potocki, saying: “As long as the world exists, a German will never be a brother to a Pole,” and added that history had proven it true. He also suggested that recent crimes in his diocese were linked to threats from the country’s eastern and western borders.
Meanwhile, Bishop Długosz, during a nightly prayer at Jasna Góra, the country’s most important Catholic shrine and pilgrimage site, praised both uniformed forces and civilian volunteers from the so-called Border Defense Movement. This loosely organized nationalist group, linked to controversial far-right activist Robert Bąkiewicz, has conducted unauthorized patrols near Poland’s western border with Germany.
Długosz described the group’s actions as a response by “Polish parliamentarians and patriots concerned about the situation on the western border, where German police are pushing illegal migrants across as if they were objects.”
He framed this as a protest against EU migration policies.
In response, the foreign ministry reiterated that border policy and the activities of the Border Defense Movement are internal matters of the Polish state and not a subject for comment by Catholic Church officials.
'We expect bishops not to interfere in politics'
During Wednesday’s press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the Lublin Triangle, a regional cooperation initiative between Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, Sikorski emphasized the separation between church and state.
He noted that in interwar Poland, episcopal appointments required state approval, a practice abandoned with the signing of the Concordat.
"Today, we no longer have that power, because we agreed in the Concordat that secular and religious authorities are autonomous,” he said. “That is why we do not interfere in sacraments, and we expect bishops not to interfere in party politics."
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP