Controversial cleric apologizes for 'totalitarianism' outburst

June 29, 2011 Polish priest Tadeusz Rydzyk, the head of a Catholic media empire, Tuesday apologized for accusing the Polish authorities of "totalitarianism" -- a comment that prompted a government complaint to the Vatican. "If someone misunderstood me, I apologize," Rydzyk said in an interview for the Nasz Dziennik newspaper. Rydzyk, who heads the ultra-Catholic Radio Maryja broadcaster, made his controversial comments during a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels discussing renewable energy. Rydzyk, who has frequently clashed with the Civic Platform (PO) government, lashed out in Brussels at the Polish authorities for scrapping a deal in 2007 under which a foundation run by the cleric had peviously been allocated subisdies for geothermal drilling in the city of Torun. "I said that this is totalitarianism. I didn't say that Poland is a totalitarian state," Rydzyk told Nasz Dziennik. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Monday that Rydzyk had been speaking in Brussels in his own name rather than for the Vatican or the Polish Catholic Church. Source: The Warsaw Voice