New Primate for Poland Soon?

The Polish daily Rzeczpospolita reports that Pope Benedict XVI will name a new primate for Poland sometime this spring.

If the Rzeczpospolita report is accurate-- and it has not been confirmed by Vatican sources-- it would contradict earlier indications that Pope Benedict would allow the current Polish primate, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, the retired Archbishop of Warsaw, to retain that title until he reaches his 80th birthday in 2009.

Cardinal Glemp became the Polish primate in 1981, when he succeeded the legendary Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski as Archbishop of Warsaw and of Gniezno. Historically the title of primate was attached to the Gniezno archdiocese. But in 1992, when he approved a restructuring of the Polish hierarchy and appointed a new Archbishop of Gniezno (Henryk Muszynski), Pope John Paul II (bio - news) stipulated that Cardinal Glemp would remain the primate.