ENI – Poland's Roman Catholic nuns withstood pressure from the communist-era secret police far more robustly than male clergy, some new research shows.
“It's obviously hard to make comparisons,” said Jolanta Olech, president of Poland's Conference of Superiors of Female Religious Orders. “But the documentation shows nuns proved much tougher than priests.” The Ursuline order nun was speaking as investigations continued into the Polish church's infiltration by the communist-era secret police, who “determined efforts” to find agents among Poland's 27,000 nuns. Interior ministry files suggest no more than 30 were recruited nationwide during the 1980s, a hundred times fewer than in the case of Roman Catholic priests.
