Poland has asked the Vatican to intervene with a radical outspoken Polish priest who told European lawmakers that his country was run by a “totalitarian” regime.

Priest Tadeusz Rydzyk, who runs the Catholic radio station Radio Maryja as well as a television station in Poland, said the country had not been ruled by Poles since 1939, or before World War Two.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Jerzy Buzek, the Polish president of the European Parliament, both criticized Rydzyk's remarks made in Brussels last week.

The Foreign Ministry complained in a statement that Rydzyk had harmed Poland's image abroad and asked the Vatican to step in.

Jewish rights groups in the past have accused Rydzyk's radio station of anti-Semitism.

Poland ousted a communist regime in 1989 and is now a member of NATO and the European Union.