"Radio Maryja, a nation-wide radio system organised by the Redemptorist Fathers, became much more involved in spreading risky politics than in spreading the Gospel." Pope Benedict XVI warned Radio Maryja to quit engaging in politics. The Polish bishops remain divided over Radio Maryja, given its considerable influence among its primary audience of the elderly rural poor. While some bishops have criticized Radio Maryja for spreading opinions incompatible with the official teaching of the Catholic Church, others voice support for the station. Critics say that the Polish bishops have been divided over Radio Maryja for a long time. Lech Wałęsa, the Nobel Prize laureate and former president of Poland, has stated that Radio Maryja "is lying if it considers itself a Catholic station," According to a 2013 article in the liberal Catholic weekly magazine Tygodnik Powszechny, which belongs to ITI Group, the cause of the ills of the Church in Poland is Radio Maryja. Allegations of antisemitism According to the Anti-Defamation League and other critics, the radio has promoted nationalism and antisemitism since its inception. The charges of anti-Semitism against Radio Maryja have brought the station to worldwide attention. In January 2000, Radio Maryja aired an interview between Ryszard Bender, a historian from the Catholic University of Lublin, and Dariusz Ratajczak, a convicted Holocaust denier who said that Auschwitz was a labor camp rather than an extermination camp. In April 2006, well-known Polish essayist Stanisław Michalkiewicz – a major personality on Telewizja Trwam – was reported in Gazeta Wyborcza as stating that "men from Judea ... are trying to surprise us from behind," and referring to the World Jewish Congress as "a main firm in the Holocaust Industry". In July 2007, over 700 Polish Catholic intellectuals, journalists, priests and activists signed a public letter of protest condemning Radio Maryja's anti-Semitic remarks. Poland's Media Ethics Council referred to the station's "weakly documented accusations" against Jews as "primitive anti-Semitism" and condemned Radio Maryja. According to a U.S. State Department report from 2008, "Radio Maryja is one of Europe’s most blatantly anti-Semitic media venues." A report of the Council of Europe stated that Radio Maryja has been "openly inciting to antisemitism for several years." In 2011 the Polish Broadcasting Authority Commission examined two programs on Radio Maryja and reprimanded the station for its antisemitic statements and "nationalistic racism". The Simon Wiesenthal Center initiated a petition condemning Radio Maryja's alleged anti-Semitic statements. In January 2017,