A bulwark against despair, a sanctuary of freedom, a subversive counterforce -- during a decade of struggle against communist control, the Roman Catholic Church in Poland was all that and more, depending on the viewpoint. Its representatives stood courageously alongside the Solidarity trade union and suffered the consequences, when Father Jerzy Popieluszko, an activist priest, was murdered by government security agents in 1984. When the struggle ended in 1989 with a Solidarity-led government, the church emerged triumphant, solidly allied with an administration it had all but installed.
A year later, the church, to which 97% of Poland's 38 million people belong,...
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