The Vatican confirmed Polish press reports of the pontiff meeting with Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, the founder and director of Radio Maryja, after his weekly audience at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.

No comment was made about this meeting.

Father Rydzyk, a Redemptorist priest, was accompanied by Father Zdzislaw Klafka, the Polish provincial of the Redemptorist order.

Rydzyk has faced accusations of anti-Semitism, fueled by statements that were attributed to him in a report that appeared in the Wprost magazine.

In the report, the priest made comments slamming Polish President Lech Kaczynski for giving in to Jewish demands for compensation for property lost after the Holocaust in post-war Poland.

The Polish priest has denied the charge of anti-Semitism and said he "didn‘t intend to offend anyone." He spoke of "serious provocation and media manipulation."

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

According to Catholic sources, controversy surrounding Radio Marjya is likely to be on the agenda when the Polish bishops meet at Czestochowa later this month.

However Polish observers suggest that the bishops probably will not make any official statement until hearing a report from a prosecutor in the city of Torun, who is currently investigating the accuracy of the story published in Wprost.

The Radio Maryja media empire, which also includes a television station and a newspaper, mixes Catholic fundamentalist, Polish nationalist and anti-liberal ideologies and has sparked controversy for alleged anti-Semitic broadcasts.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles., declared Tuesday that "there should be no place in the Church for someone who spreads anti-Semitism.’’