Polish archbishop thanks state oil firm for buying newspapers from German owner

A Polish archbishop has thanked state-owned oil giant Orlen for its recent purchase of hundreds of media outlets from their German owner. He also condemned a German supermarket for seeking to evade Poland’s ban on Sunday trading and praised the government’s response to the pandemic.

“We thank PKN Orlen for buying Polish local press from German capital,” said Wiktor Skworc, the archbishop of Katowice, on Sunday, during the annual Pilgrimage of Men and Male Youths to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Social Justice and Love in Piekary Śląskie.

“We can see the change in our local [newspaper] Dziennik Zachodni,” added the archbishop. That newspaper is one of a number that has seen its longstanding editor replaced following Orlen’s buyout of Polska Press, which owns most of Poland’s leading regional and local news outlets.

Last month, Marek Twaróg, who had been editor of Dziennik Zachodni since 2010, was replaced by Grzegorz Gajda, who had until then worked for state broadcaster TVP, which has become a mouthpiece for the government.

Critics have raised concern that the purchase of Polska Press by Orlen – whose CEO, Daniel Obajtek, is close to the conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party – is intended to bring the media under greater government influence. PiS has openly endorsed the takeover, but denies there will be political interference.

In April, a court ordered that the Orlen’s buyout of the media outlets be suspended while it considers a challenge against it brought by Poland’s commissioner for human rights. But the oil firm, which is Poland’s largest company by revenue, disputes that ruling and has pushed ahead with its plans.

During his address to the pilgrims, Skworc also condemned retailers who have sought to evade a ban on Sunday trading by using an exemption that allows them to remain open if they offer postal services. He singled out one company in particular for criticism.

“The German chain Kaufland has triumphantly announced that it is joining the retail firms that are exploiting the loophole of offering postal services that allows sales on non-trading Sunday,” he said.

“We ask not to demolish social and family life by the forced ‘enlisting’ of thousands of citizens, especially women, to work on Sundays,” Skworc continued. “Economic gains must not be placed before the human right to rest and family life. The community of the church will not be silent on this matter.”

Supermarket chain Kaufland last week announced that it would be offering postal services in all its 227 stores in Poland, meaning that they can in theory stay open on Sundays. However, Business Insider Polska notes that the firm has not yet decided whether it will actually offer trading on Sunday.

Business Insider estimates that around half of grocery stores in Poland are now permitted to remain open on Sundays by exploiting this loophole as well as an exemption for shops in which the owner is working behind the counter.

The restrictions on Sunday trading were introduced in 2018 by the PiS government, following a campaign for them by the Solidarity trade union with the support of the Catholic church. A poll last year found that almost half (48%) of Poles want the ban to be abolished, compared to 36% who want it to stay in place.

The archbishop also thanked the government for its efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and praised the Catholic church’s own role.

“We cannot fail to thank those in power…[who] are forced to make decisions that are unpopular, but ultimately serve our health,” said Skworc.”Thanks to enormous dedication, sacrifices, financial outlays and the cooperation of many entities, as a state and society we come out victorious when confronted with the pandemic.”

While Poland fared relatively well during the first wave of the pandemic last spring, it was hit hard by a second wave in the autumn and a further one in spring this year. The country had the highest excess death rate in the European Union last year.

“As a community of the church, we made the right decisions to take care of the common good, protect health and save lives,” added Skworc. Poland’s Catholic hierarchy resisted calls to close churches, which have remained open throughout the pandemic. But it has offered special dispensation for individuals to be exempted from mass.

The archbishop also advised the faithful to “take advantage of vaccination against the virus, for personal and common good”. He called for “social solidarity and mutual responsibility” to overcome “the virus of selfishness and paganism of indifference”.

In April, the Polish episcopate advised Catholics to seek to use the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines. It expressed “serious moral objection” to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, because they were produced using material derived from aborted foetuses.

The Pilgrimage of Men and Male Youths normally draws tens of thousands of participants each year. This time, however, attendance was limited to 10,000 due to the pandemic.

Main image credit: EpiskopatNews/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.