Some European countries (England) have laws that curtail freedom of speech to protect religious groups from criticism. There is a BBC an article that a Polish Court convicted a prominent journalist of insulting a foreign head of state. He compared the Pope to Brezhnev. I haven't been able to get the offensive text. He may have meant that the Pope is isolated and dependent on the Vatican bureaucacy and a few personal assistants, and losing touch. That argument has some merit.
The head of State was the Pope who is the head of state of the Vatican City, which is a separate state under International Law. Poland doesn't seem to have laws that specifically protect the Catholic Church and other religious groups from hate speech or other lesser forms of criticism. However I am not sure how those laws might apply to criticism of the Pope or his performance in the Vatican.
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