Tamašunienė backs removing Gulbinowicz street names

Lithuanian Justice Minister Rita Tamašunienė says streets named after Polish cleric Henryk Gulbinowicz should be renamed in Vilnius District, changing her earlier position, LRT reported.

“Council members make their own decisions, but I have already said this issue needs to be resolved,” Tamašunienė, a member of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania–Union of Christian Families, told reporters on Wednesday. Asked which way it should be resolved, she said the name should be removed.

Tamašunienė had previously said she would not vote to rename the streets or revoke Gulbinowicz’s honorary citizen title. The district administration regularly raises the renaming question at council meetings, but members of the party that holds a majority on the council have opposed the changes.

Officials have proposed renaming the street in the Buivydžiai administrative eldership Buivydžiai Street, and the one in Nemenčinė Gabriel Jan Mincewicz Street. After the council repeatedly refused to approve the changes, the government representative for Vilnius and Alytus counties, Gedmantė Eimontienė, filed a case in court. The Regional Administrative Court has yet to issue a ruling.

Gulbinowicz, who was born in the village of Šukiškės in Vilnius District, served as archbishop of Wrocław and became a cardinal in 1985. The Vatican imposed disciplinary sanctions on him over multiple cases of sexual abuse of minors, concealing paedophilia crimes among clergy and 16 years of cooperation with the security service of the Polish People’s Republic. He died in November 2020.

The district council granted Gulbinowicz honorary citizen status. It considered a proposal to revoke the title last September but rejected it.