Poland: The head of Poland's fundamentalist radio station Radio Maryja has apologised for broadcasting anti-Semitic remarks by a leading commentator.
The apology comes as the station faces questions about its financial affairs and renewed Vatican criticism for its political involvement, prompting station supporters to attack Pope Benedict on air as a spineless German.
Yesterday's apology concerned a commentary last month saying that "Kikes" had "humiliated" Poland with compensation demands for property seized in the second World War.
"We did not mean to hurt anyone's feelings. We respect each person regardless of nationality, age, race or religion," said Fr Tadeusz Rydzyk, the Redemptorist priest who heads the radio station and its sister television station Trwam TV. Last week, the last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising said Radio Maryja was no better than the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.
The papal nuncio in Poland last week sent a second "serious warning" to the Redemptorist religious order that runs Radio Maryja, expressing the Vatican's "deep concern about Radio Maryja's political commitments". In a second letter, the papal nuncio urged Polish bishops to tackle the maverick Fr Rydzyk.
But Radio Maryja divides Polish bishops: some support the mixture of rosary and commentary, while others are appalled by what they hear.
"This is a radio station which should pray, broadcast holy Mass, provide religious education and bible study instead of becoming involved in politics, especially politics with a clear-cut orientation," said Archbishop Tadeusz Goclowski of Gdansk.
Radio Maryja and Trwam TV are staunch supporters of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) and its politicians make regular appearances on its programmes.
But the relationship is coming under pressure after a newspaper alleged that Fr Rydzyk lost up to €26 million in listener donations on the stock market.
Meanwhile, a station supporter has criticised Pope Benedict on air for not stopping the attacks on Radio Maryja, which he said were motivated by its decision to "break the taboo of saying nothing but good things about Jews".
"Nobody in the world worries more about being called an anti-Semite than the Germans and not without reason, because they know what they did," said Prof Boguslaw Wolniewicz, a philosophy professor. "The Third Reich broke the spine of the Germans and this spine still hasn't grown back."