2 Police Officers Arrested in Poland for Disrupting Mass
Two police officers accused of disrupting a Mass at a church linked to the banned trade union Solidarity have been placed under pretrial arrest, the state-run PAP news agency said Monday.
The two drunken men “insulted religious feelings of people” gathered for services Friday evening at St. Brygida’s Church in Gdansk, disturbed public order near the church and assaulted and injured several people, PAP said.
The men have been charged with “hooligan offenses,” it added.
Solidarity spokeswoman Joanna Wojciechowicz on Saturday reported that a scuffle broke out when worshipers restrained drunken police officers after one of them appeared about to urinate on the altar during Mass.
Father Henryk Jankowski, the parish priest, said he made a report Monday at the prosecutor’s office and also sent documents on the incident to Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski.
St. Brygida’s, near the Lenin Shipyard where the union was born, is frequently the scene of pro-Solidarity demonstrations.
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