Poles divided over John Paul II's favorite cake offered to train passengers

The cream cakes with a thick layer of rich custard sandwiched between sheets of puff pastry became known as a papal favourite after John Paul II waxed lyrically about the sweet treats during a visit to his hometown of Wadowice in 1999.

Travellers on the train from Gdynia to Warsaw were keen on the initiative saying it helped keep the memory of the late pope alive.

Some of them, like 65-year-old pensioner Leszek Rutkowski, were on his way to Warsaw to join the march in defence of John Paul II following accusations that the former pope, canonised in 2013, helped to cover up paedophilia scandals when he was archbishop of Kraków.

"I heard that they slander the pope (Polish pope John Paul II) and we cannot let that happen. People should wake up and not let the pope's name be slandered," Rutkowski said.

Another passenger, 50-year-old automation mechanic Tomasz Musiał, said he had been on two papal pilgrimages for John Paul II (to Poland). "I saw him in person when he was still a living person, not yet a saint," he said.

"What is now happening and what has happened when it comes to challenging his authority ... I think we need to show that it is not really the way some media portray it," Musiał added.

"What can I say? It's a great initiative (giving free papal cream cakes to the train passengers). It reminds us of our pope, of his activities and his love to our country, to us - Poles," said medical shop assistant Joanna Koch.

"I think it (the free papal cream cakes) is a nice gesture from PKP, but I do not see the need to mix the pope into the political affairs," said Wiktor Byczkowski, an attorney.

MP Paulina Matysiak of Left Together said the fact of giving out cakes was not a problem in itself. "What the problem is, however, using trains as places of religious propaganda and demanding the employees wear yellow-and-white pins (the colors of the Holy See - edit.) ... It's quite said the right-wing tries to rescue the legacy and good name of John Paul II with kremówki," she stressed.

Economist and former PKP chairman Jakub Karnowski also expressed concerns regarding the cake campaign. He stressed the PKP Group Foundation had been established to support families of railway workers. "I didn't suspect it would be used to ridicule John Paul II in order to suck up to PiS politicians," he said.

Ruling PiS party MP Bogdan Rzońca celebrated the idea and sent his regards to PKP employees and cake producers.

A left-wing Left Together party MP Andrian Zandberg commented somewhat ironically to the papal cakes initiative. "It's not true that Mateusz Morawiecki's team never keep their word. We may not have affordable housing and actual purchasing power may be dropping, but instead we get free "kremówki" in Pendolino. Unfortunately, not so fresh," he said.

"It would even be funny, if public money wasn't spent on it," Zandberg added.

Two separate investigations by Ekke Overbeek in his recent book Maxima Culpa and Polish TVN, which include documents from the communist secret police as well as victims' statements, have stirred a heated debate in Poland, where the Catholic Church continues to have a strong influence on society and politics.

The ruling Law and Justice party say that the investigations are based on fake materials concocted to discredit the pope and the values shared by the religious conservative part of the population - the party's traditional electoral base. In the months before the parliamentary election planned for October this year, the pope has become Law and Justice's bargaining chip.