Still Running Off at the Keyboard

KRAKOW, Poland, Jan. 9 — Poland was convulsed in finger-pointing and recrimination on Tuesday as more allegations of former secret-police collaborators among the Roman Catholic clergy members spilled onto the country’s front pages, sullying an institution that for decades was considered spotless in its fight against Communism.

And the stream of disclosures now promises to become a torrent: here in Krakow, the Rev. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski is preparing to publish a book that will identify 39 priests whose names he found in Krakow’s secret police files, three of whom are now bishops in the Polish church.

Perhaps the most explosive assertion by people in the church is that the taint of collaboration was known for decades but kept quiet out of respect for — or perhaps even at the behest of — the Polish-born Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005.