SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER CALLS ON POLAND AND THE VATICAN TO RELEASE THE RYDZYK TAPES

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, following yesterday’s statement by Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, denying that he was antisemitic, today urged the Vatican and the Polish government to immediately release the full transcript of Father Rydzyk's remarks during an April 2007 speech in which he called the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, a “fraudster who is in the pockets of the Jewish lobby”…”You know what this about. Poland giving [the Jews] $65 billion. They will come to you and say, ‘Give me your coat. Take off your trousers. Give me your shoes.’”

Rydzyk’s Polish superior, Father Klafka said that an investigation into the charges against Rydzyk concluded that he “does not identify himself with the antisemitism that has been attributed to him.” Klafka also indicated that he was speaking with the approval of Father Joseph Tobin, the worldwide head of the Redemptorist Order.

“This matter is quite easy to resolve: Father Rydzyk either said it or he didn’t say it and the Polish government is sitting on the tape,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “We call on both the Vatican and the Polish government to release the full text of his remarks so that the public can judge for themselves whether or not Rydzyk is an anti-Semite masquerading as a priest. Anything less will only be interpreted as a cover-up,” Hier concluded.