News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Pope Benedict XVI met on Sunday with the controversial director of a Polish Catholic radio station who has been accused of anti-Semitism. According to European Jewish Press, the Vatican confirmed Polish press reports of the pontiff's meeting with Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, founder and director of Radio Maryja, after his weekly audience at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.

Rydzyk has faced accusations of anti-Semitism in the past, and these have been exacerbated by statements from him that appeared in a magazine called Wprost. The magazine quoted the priest as slamming Polish President Lech Kaczynski for giving in to Jewish demands for compensation for property lost after the Holocaust in post-war Poland.

Israel’s ambassador to Poland, David Peleg, recently demanded that Polish political leaders and Church officials issue an explicit condemnation of Rydzyk’s stance.