A man of deep and vast cultural learning, Wojtyła not only urged the professors in the theological institutes of higher education to produce books on the challenges of the contemporary world, but he himself also wrote scholarly articles that were published in a number of Polish periodicals. He devoured books, taking every opportunity to read and keep himself informed. In order to be able to read in the car, he had a special reading lamp mounted on the backseat. One anecdote has it that, while on holiday, a woman read aloud to him from one book, and her daughter read to him from another, while he was reading yet another book at the same time.
In Cracow, he worked in the chapel on Franciszkańska Street, where he was able to study and pray without excessive distractions (to maintain concentration, he sometimes read with his feet immersed in cold water). Many people remember seeing him kneeling at his desk, which still stands to the left of the tabernacle. Prayer was always a source of strength and inspiration for him, to such a degree that even during the interval between one lesson and the next at the seminary he would hurry to the chapel for a quick spiritual reinvigoration.
In the mid-1950s, the Polish government suppressed the departments of theology at the state universities of Warsaw and Cracow, replacing them with the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw, with the intention of undermining the power of the Catholic Church. Wojtyła and Cardinal Wyszyński held differing opinions about this institution. Wyszyński, who had worked hard to ensure that the teachings of the academy should remain within the precincts of Catholic orthodoxy, and who was fairly happy with the result, considered it in any case a tool at the service of the Church. Wojtyła on the other hand opposed recognition of the academy by the Holy See. Although he too acknowledged its doctrinal orthodoxy, he did not want an institute financed by the Communist regime to be seen as a legitimate successor to the two university departments that had been suppressed, fearing that such a move might forfeit the right of the Church to have a university theology department of its own.
As General Wojciech Jaruzelski, former president of the Polish Republic, publicly admitted, “We often made comparisons between Primate Wyszyński and Cardinal Wojtyła. We used an image, describing the primate as the ‘rock’ and Wojtyła as the ‘icebreaker,’ in the best sense of the term, that is, as a man capable of shattering prejudices on both sides of the divide.”
The Communists did their best to foment disagreements between the two churchmen, saying that Wyszyński was rigid and fanatical, while Wojtyła was an educated, open-minded man. For that very reason, Wojtyła allied himself forcefully and openly with Wyszyński to prevent the possibility of any misunderstanding. The authorities gradually realized it was not true that Wojtyła was more willing than Wyszyński to resolve problems through compromise. And they had definitive confirmation in September of 1967 when, after the primate was denied a passport to take part in the first general assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome, Wojtyła decided not to attend either, in a gesture of solidarity.
His relations with Cardinal Wyszyński were extremely loyal. When he spoke about the primate, Wojtyła described his remarkable personality and emphasized his gift for keeping the Polish episcopate united at a particularly trying time for the Catholic Church. The first responsibility of the episcopate of any nation, he frequently said, is to preserve its unity, as that ensures the survival and vigor of a church. For that reason, any disagreements that existed would get relegated to the background (a likely reference to differences of opinion between him and the primate) in order to safeguard unity among the bishops.
Still in the context of obviating conflict and encouraging reconciliation, we should mention an initiative in which Wojtyła played a strong and leading role, and which aroused indignation and controversy. This was the drafting of the well-known letter sent on November 18, 1965, by the Polish episcopate to the German episcopate as a symbolic gesture of peaceful reconciliation between two nations so bitterly opposed during the Second World War. The text included a line from Horace that had been used by Pope Paul VI in his letter dated September 29, 1962, to the separated brothers of the Catholic Church: “Veniam damus petimusque vicissim” (We forgive and seek to be forgiven in return).
In spite of the hostile propaganda mounted by the Communist authorities and the difficulties that many Polish Catholics felt in accepting a gesture of such scope, in the end the initiative certainly had a positive and constructive outcome. With the benefit of historical perspective, we can look back and see in this courageous decision an early manifestation of what would be distinctive traits of Pope John Paul II: the desire to overcome the wounds of the past, to encourage reconciliation among peoples, to look to the future with a new spirit.
Cardinal Wojtyła was also, during a trip to West Germany in September 1975, the first of the Polish bishops to choose to visit East Germany, as a small but significant gesture of encouragement toward a church that was struggling with profound isolation and daunting challenges posed by the oppressive Communist regime. Wojtyła traveled to Erfurt, where a large Catholic gathering was under way. There he presided over the Eucharistic celebration and met with the bishop, later cardinal, Joachim Meisner, with whom an enduring friendship was born.
IN THE CHILL OF NOWA HUTA
In order to encourage the involvement of all the priests of the Cracow diocese, Archbishop Wojtyła established the presbyterial council, a body that he always consulted before making any important decision. The council was made up of thirty priests, chosen democratically out of the entire clergy every four years. One of the members declared that “from the very beginning, he placed great trust and reliance in the council, as an expression of the same trust shown by Christ toward the Church and its ministers. Wojtyła always presided over the Mass that marked the beginning of every council meeting, commenting upon the word of God, and then moderating the debate. The atmosphere that developed during the work was cordial, serene, and fraternal. Anyone was free to speak, with the knowledge that his opinion would be heard with gratitude and interest.” And in fact the presbyterial council gave rise to a number of initiatives promoting the education, cooperation, and collaboration of the priests, which the archbishop always approved wholeheartedly.
Wojtyła considered dialogue fundamental. When faced with a problem, first he engaged in an in-depth analysis of the situation, then he consulted with those who might help him to find a solution. He never said, “It can’t be done, it won’t succeed,” but instead, “Let us see how we can do it.” When he presided over a meeting, he always began with an invitation to lay out the question “as it appears in the light of faith.”
Those who turned to him for advice always found in him serious and focused attention. A bishop who had been appointed to a prestigious new position asked him, “You know me well. What should I do to perform my new ministry effectively?” Wojtyła took time to find an appropriate answer and then said, “That is the same question that I asked in a similar situation of a superior of mine, and he answered simply, ‘Be yourself.’ That is the same thing that I now say to you.”
Another answer that he often gave to those who asked him what decision they should make was: “Have you thought about what your vocation is?” A witness who recalled this answer was one of his students from his university pastoral duties in Cracow: “When a number of politicians started a hunger strike, I turned to Wojtyła, who was our spiritual adviser, and asked him what I ought to do. His answer was simple: ‘Have you asked yourself exactly what your vocation is? You may be summoned to be a father, a teacher, a politician. If you can find a persuasive answer to that question, then you will know what to do!’ ”
In order to encourage the renewal of the life of the local church, he paid pastoral visits to the parishes almost every Sunday. In the speeches that he made on those occasions, he was fond of repeating St. Augustine’s phrase “Vobis sum episcopus, vobiscum christianus” (I am a bishop for you, I am a Christian with you).
With a style that was exquisitely personal, Wojtyła did not limi
t himself to celebrating Mass and delivering a sermon when he made these visits, but instead he placed the central focus on a meeting with different groups of the faithful who belonged to that parish: children, young people, students, intellectuals. He would bless the married couples, so that they would support one another in all the circumstances of life on earth and help one another on the path to salvation. And if there were sick people who had been unable to make it to the church, he would go to visit them in their homes, or in the hospitals or nursing homes, where he spoke words of encouragement to the physicians and the nursing staff as well.
He was especially tenacious in his efforts to encourage the construction of new churches in his diocese, an objective that was clearly at odds with the aims of the regime. The case of Nowa Huta was emblematic. According to the plans of the Communist government, this new quarter for the working class was to be the first city built without God. But the archbishop was certainly not willing to let that happen, and he continued to support the project to build a house of God, setting an example with his actions—for instance, celebrating a Christmas Mass there at midnight, in the open air, under the roof of the stars. In the end, the church was built, to the great joy of the faithful, who gathered tearfully, more than fifty thousand of them, to witness the consecration on May 15, 1977.
This was an episode in which we see, in Wojtyła, not only his crystalline determination to pursue his goals, but also his ability to exercise judgment above and beyond any preconceptions and received ideas. The archbishop in fact chose to entrust the duties of builder-priest to Father Józef Gorzelan, who had already performed a similar task in Filipowice. And he did so despite vocal opposition and objections about the priest’s fitness to hold that duty, prompted by the fact that Father Gorzelan was a member of Caritas, which in Poland was a state-run charitable organization and did not enjoy the approval of the Polish episcopate.
When Archbishop Agostino Casaroli—the chief supporter of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik, the policy of cautious openness toward the regimes of Eastern Europe—visited Poland, the Polish authorities showed him that they had issued permits for the construction of sixty churches (actually just small chapels in little villages). Wojtyła then invited the guest from the Holy See to come to Krowodrze, where the Church of St. Jadwiga Queen of Poland now stands. It was November, and a wintry mix of rain and snow was falling. Together they celebrated Mass in a shack that could hold some fifty people, while at least ten times that number stood outside. When a thoroughly chilled Monsignor Casaroli returned to Warsaw, he paid a call on the Communist authorities and expressed his intense displeasure at the way they had misled him on the real need to build new churches.
Wojtyła was always on the front line when it was a matter of defending the existence of the Church and protecting the properties that were indispensable to supporting its mission. In 1962, rumors circulated that the authorities were planning to expropriate the seminary building on Manifestu Lipcowego Street and transform it into a student center for the Graduate School of Education. The archbishop, first of all, pronounced an act of consecration to the Madonna to entrust to her the fate of the seminary. Next, he ordered the seminarians to make an early, unplanned return from the spiritual retreat in which they were engaged. He then informed the authorities that, when they came to seize the building, he would make sure that all the canons were in front of the building, waiting for them. There was no more talk of state expropriation.
Entirely unprecedented for the diocese was the care that Wojtyła devoted to unmarried mothers. This was a decision that never failed to incur the disapproval of older priests, irritated at help being provided to persons they considered “at fault.” By offering this help, they objected, weren’t they running the risk of justifying bad behavior? Wojtyła was decisive in his reponse that what he was doing was essentially safeguarding innocent children (and there were more than fifteen hundred of them).
In 1974, the cardinal contacted Sister Bernarda Krzeczkowska, the provincial superior of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, suggesting that she take over the management of the home for unwed mothers. The nun did not conceal her concerns from Wojtyła. “What will happen if the maternal instinct is awakened in some of the younger nuns and they therefore leave the congregation?” she asked. The archbishop reassured her: “That’s a risk we run, Mother. But I know that this is something of God’s, and you will see that what you fear will not happen.” Indeed, as the nuns later saw, no sister ever left the congregation for that particular reason and, quite the contrary, since then the number of vocations has only grown.
The first unwed mother arrived at the home on Warszawska Street on November 4, 1974. Word spread rapidly, and soon many young—and less young—women began to arrive from every corner of Poland. Wojtyła in fact had specifically instructed the nuns to welcome all pregnant women, without exception, no matter what part of the country they came from. In 1978, the facility was becoming too small to accommodate all the unwed mothers. And so, shortly before the cardinal entered the Conclave, the superior, Sister Cherubina Zofia Bokota, came to see him in the company of the provincial mother to ask what she should do. The answer was to buy another building. The home was moved to Przybyszewskiego Street 39, and Wojtyła offered a substantial down payment out of his own pocket, while the rest of the sum came from the treasury of the diocesan curia.
As pontiff, he likewise made the defense of life one of his priorities. A witness at the process of beatification recalled that one day John Paul II, while they were discussing this issue, gave him a penetrating look and raised one hand high in an extremely forceful gesture. Then he proclaimed: “We must take every imaginable action against the abominable crime of abortion.” The man froze: in that gesture and in that glare was the same energy that had inflamed his words of condemnation against the Mafia in the Valley of Temples in Agrigento, Sicily, and the same determination with which he had resisted the heckling of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua while he was celebrating Mass.
IN THE SIGHTS OF THE POLISH INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
A powerful and authoritative personality like that of Karol Wojtyła could hardly pass unobserved by the Polish authorities, who focused the eyes of the Intelligence Service of the Secret Police upon him. The historical commission of the process of beatification reconstructed carefully the phases and the dynamics of this surveillance campaign over the years, working in collaboration with the archives of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance in Cracow and in particular with the researcher Marek Lasota, who in 2006 published a book on the subject titled Donos na Wojtyłę: Karol Wojtyła w teczkach bezpieki (Denouncing Wojtyła: Karol Wojtyła in Polish Communist Secret Service Records).
The first sign of interest on the part of the Communist regime toward Karol Wojtyła actually dates back to May 1946, when his name appeared on a list compiled by the third section of the regional office of State Security (WUBP) in Cracow: “Wojtyła Karol, resident of Podzamcze Street 8, son of Karol and Emilia, born on May 18, 1920, cleric by profession, student of theology in Cracow.” Next to that entry are the handwritten initials of Jan Sikora, the bureaucrat assigned to carry out the analysis of the young seminarian’s personality.
A few years later, at the end of 1949, an agent using the pseudonym of Zagielowski reported the observations he had made of the Parish of St. Florian in Cracow. “I have determined the approximate appearance of the ‘Circle of Altar Boys’ of Father Kurowski,” he wrote, among other things, “which operates in the Parish of St. Florian. I have not been able to determine whether it has been registered. Their director is Father Kurowski himself, now replaced by a new vicar, Father Wojdyla [sic], and before that by Father Obtulowicz. The meetings last as long as two hours, they read reports, and they play parlor games.”
For the time being, the interest of the Intelligence Service appears to have remained fairly limited, and there is not another notation until January 17, 1956, when the director of the Office of Religion of Cracow reported a
conversation “with Dr. Father Karol Wojtyła, already professor at the Catholic University of Lublin and at a number of seminaries.” In conclusion, he noted: “Concerning his work and his relationship with the social movement of the Catholic progressives, he says that he does not want to meddle in those matters because he prefers to steer clear of them. Karol Wojtyła is a fervid executor of papal excommunication in the matter of Piasecki’s Zagadnienia Istotne, as well as the magazine Dziś i Jutro, which he has never read and continues not to read. He has never sworn an oath of allegiance to the People’s Republic of Poland.”
The reference was to the periodical founded on November 25, 1945, by the association Pax, which consisted of the so-called Catholic progressives who were in favor of the transformation of the Polish state into a socialist system. The mastermind of the project was Bolesław Piasecki, who in his book Zagadnienia Istotne (Essential Problems), published in December 1954, had identified a Catholic framework for the changed social conditions. Six months later, the Holy Office had placed on the index of forbidden books both that book and the magazine Dziś i Jutro (Today and Tomorrow) because of the false information that they provided concerning the situation of the Catholic Church in Poland and the muddling of Catholic doctrine with Marxist ideology. The Holy See, however, thanks to the intervention of Monsignor Klepacz, who served as interim president of the Polish Episcopal Conference during the internment of Cardinal Wyszyński between 1953 and 1956, decided not to excommunicate Piasecki and his association.
Following Wojtyła’s appointment as auxiliary bishop of Cracow on July 4, 1958, the interest of the authorities grew exponentially, as is demonstrated by the massive volume of documents about him. Two things emerge from this material. One is the unmistakable interest on the part of the Intelligence Service in monitoring the bishop’s contacts with the Cracow cultural circles that opposed the regime. The other is the major effort put in place to hinder his work. Among those notes one can read, for instance: “Ever since the late fifties, Wojtyła has been active in the organization of the laity, especially among the educated class and the young. He has managed to gather around him many experts and colleagues. He organizes numerous conferences, gatherings, and congresses, as well as meetings with groups of intelligentsia and of young people. Wojtyła has earned great respect from the bishops and the parish clergy, but especially among the Catholic activists.” In particular, Wojtyła was a supporter of the Klub Inteligencji Katolickiej (Club of Catholic Intellectuals), which was especially powerful in Cracow but had branches in all the major cities of Poland and constituted a pole of attraction for many lay intellectuals as well.
Why He Is a Saint Page 5