Cardinal Jozef Glemp, leader of Poland's Catholics, dies

WARSAW, Poland -- Cardinal Jozef Glemp, the longtime head of Poland's influential Roman Catholic church who helped lead the nation peacefully through martial law and the fight against communism, has died. He was 83.

Church authorities said Glemp died Wednesday in Warsaw. He had been ill, and the Polish news agency PAP said he had lung cancer.

Warsaw Archbishop Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz said Glemp was a leader "in a difficult time" through which he led the church with prudence and wisdom.

A lawyer by education, Glemp was appointed primate of Poland's Roman Catholic church in the tempestuous, yet hope-filled year of 1981. Initially, he seemed to lose face in the public eye in comparison with his predecessor, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, a stalwart opponent of Poland's Communist regime. But for Glemp, the main goal was to avoid confrontation and prevent bloodshed.

As primate, Glemp played an active role in helping end communism in Poland, when church authorities initiated and guaranteed the fairness of political negotiations between Solidarity and the weakening communists in 1988 and 1989. His years of leadership largely coincided with the papacy of the Polish-born Pope John Paul II, who was elected pope in 1979 and died in 2005, and whose words and first visit to Poland as pope in 1979 had inspired the Solidarity movement. -- AP