Leaden Feet

It's kind of like the guest who wouldn't leave, but this one wears a white collar.

A Polish Catholic clergyman on loan to Germany has been suspended from his priestly duties because he refuses to move out of a presbytery and go home, a spokesman for the German archdiocese of Trier said Monday.

The priest had been ordered home to the diocese of Lublin in Poland after spending six years helping to make up for a shortage of priests in Germany. A German priest took over church services last year, but the Pole, 42, simply stayed on in his residence.

In October last year, church authorities began court action to evict him from the Catholic Church's house in the small town of Schönecken. The case is to be heard in February. Spokesman Stephan Kronenburg said it was the first time Trier archdiocese had ever withdrawn a priest's license for refusing to clear out.

Poland is one of the only European nations with a surplus of Catholic priests and regularly lends them to its western neighbors. In Germany, ever fewer people are opting to becoming priests, forcing the country to import them.

Father Karl Kneissl, dean of the region, said last year he believed the Polish priest did not want to return to the lower salary he would receive in his diocese of Lublin, south of Warsaw.