The World - News from May 8, 1987

Poland’s religious affairs minister was replaced by a hard-liner one month before Pope John Paul II’s third pilgrimage to his native land. Premier Zbigniew Messner told Parliament that Adam Lopatka is being replaced by hard-line Communist Party ideologist Wladyslaw Loranc. There was no immediate reaction from the Roman Catholic Church, but a dissident source said that Lopatka was regarded as “too liberal” in his handling of church-state issues. Messner said Lopatka will be given an “important state job.”