Poland's government said Tuesday (July 15) it has protested to the Vatican after two Polish bishops issued scathing criticism of their country's migration policies.

In an online press release, the government of Poland said the bishops, who are close to the country's nationalist movements, as news agency AFP reported, were interfering in domestic politics and harming relations with Germany.

"We do not consent to statements containing hurtful and unacceptable words, which undermine the fundamental principles of human dignity, as well as the sovereignty of the government of the Republic of Poland," the government said.

According to AFP, Bishop Antoni Dlugosz last week openly supported the newly founded, ultranationalist Border Defense Movement (BDM) that organizes 'citizen patrols' at Polish-German border crossings. The government says the patrols are illegal.

Wieslaw Mering, the bishop of the central Polish city of Wloclawek, called the government "political gangsters".

Mering also compared migrants returning from Germany to Poland to the situation in Belarus, from where tens of thousands of migrants have tried to enter Poland irregularly since 2021.

The Polish government has blamed Belarus and its ally Russia for what it calls a hybrid operation to increase the number of migrants arriving at its eastern border in a bid to destabilize the EU, allegations that both Belarus and Russia have repeatedly denied.

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"The borders of our country are equally threatened from the west and the east," Mering said.

According to the protest note delivered to the Vatican, the "unacceptable" statements "undermine good Polish-German relations, slander the government and represent clear support for nationalist circles".

At midnight on July 6, Poland reintroduced temporary border checks with Germany and Lithuania to curb irregular migration amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment and political tensions with Germany.

The Polish government cited the need to prevent irregular migration as a primary reason for the reintroduced checks, especially in the wake of stricter measures by neighboring Germany.

Vigilante border patrols

Ahead of introducing its own patrols along the German border, the government in Warsaw in early July announced that it will be clamping down on vigilante groups organizing unauthorized border controls along Poland's border with Germany.

The goal of the right-wing extremist groups is to stop migrants from being returned to Poland from Germany.

"All cases of insulting, obstructing and impersonating officers in recent days have been documented and forwarded to the public prosecutor's office, which has initiated proceedings," Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak stressed, adding that "(t)he Polish State will not tolerate arbitrariness and intimidation."

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The vigilante border controls are orchestrated by said Border Defense Movement. It is run by far-right figurehead Robert Bakiewicz, who is well-known across Poland as a divisive figure.

The movement -- along with the nationalist opposition -- accuses the pro-European government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk of letting German authorities push migrants across the border. There is, however, no evidence to support this claim. The Polish government, moreover, has rejected the claims, stating that the vigilante groups and their supporters were misled by fake news.

Vigilante groups in the Netherlands reportedly employed similar tactics along their shared border with Germany last month.

with AFP