Following the publication of a book and the broadcast of a television report, the controversy over the legacy of St. John Paul II has intensified in Poland. The authors accuse him of covering up cases of pederasty when he was Metropolitan Archbishop of Krakow. The accusations are based on unreliable allegations from the communist era.
A book written by the Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek and a television report on a private channel were made public in Poland at the same time. Some opinion makers immediately accepted as credible the theses contained in both about the behavior of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła regarding certain pedophile priests.
On the contrary, numerous associations and institutions rose up in defense of the memory of the holy Pope; even the Polish Parliament issued a resolution on the matter.
However, the greatest merit lies in the analysis, especially historical, of the materials used by the authors of these accusations, who relied on documents of the communist secret services stored at the Institute of National Memory.
False accusations and discrediting of the Church
Prior to 1989, there was a systematic fight against the Church in Poland by the communist regime.
In addition to the lack of religious freedom, there were even murders of the clergy.
The state services relied on a network of informers, including priests. Sometimes the state apparatus used their knowledge of problematic information as a means of control, for example, that a priest abused alcohol or had a child, in order to blackmail him into cooperating. Informers collected news of varying quality and also numerous rumors.
Ekke Overbeek's book begins with accusations against Cardinal Wojtyła's predecessor and mentor, Cardinal Adam Sapieha. The author cites the allegations of priest Anatol Boczek, whom the cardinal suspended from the priesthood.
Boczek describes two meetings with Cardinal Sapieha in 1950, during which he allegedly suffered abuse. Now, one need only check the dates to doubt this explanation: the ailing Cardinal Sapieha was 83 years old at the time, and he allegedly beat the young priest. However, as historian Professor Paweł Skibiński points out, the author of the book does not reflect on the factual reality of the allegations.
The mention of Cardinal Sapieha is important insofar as it is directly, so to speak, an introduction to the attack on the later Cardinal Wojtyła. The thesis is that Wojtyła himself was affected by abuse and that this influenced his attitude toward sexual abuse. Something that even the communist officials of the time would not have made up.
The television report cites the cases of three priests whose sexual crimes Cardinal Wojtyla allegedly covered up while he was Archbishop of Krakow. As noted by the historian of the Institute of National Remembrance, Professor Rafał Łatka, one of these priests was sent by the future pope the diocese to which he belonged since he was not part of the clergy of Krakow. Thus, he acted in accordance with canon law. In the second case, the priest was suspended and forbidden to practice while in the case of the third priest, there is no convincing evidence that the cardinal knew about the abuses. Moreover, it is not known exactly what they consisted of.
The conclusion is that these journalistic materials have been prepared under a prefabricated thesis.
The authors did not verify the sources, which come from a very specific context. Moreover, as historian Dr. Marek Lasota has pointed out, "there was not even a request to the Krakow curia for access to the source material about the clerics Overbeek writes about." The same thing happened with the television report.
"Manufacturing" of documents
Archbishop Grzegorz Ryś, a historian who was part of the historical commission that investigated the Krakow period of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła during the canonization process stresses that one of the keys to interpreting the documents is that it was a totalitarian communist state, where the authorities of the time were at war against the Church and the nation. "I can show the documents from the time of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła in Krakow, which were fabricated not to resolve anything at the time, but to guide reflection 50 years later. This is a dispute about memory," Archbishop Ryś stressed.
How the state services acted at that time is illustrated, for example, by the case of the priest Roman Kotlarz, who was murdered. While he was still alive, the SB (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, the communist intelligence service and secret police) spread the rumor that priest Kotlarz was seeing women and was an alcoholic. The consequence of this was that, 10 years ago when the bishop of Radom asked the priests of the diocese about the possibility of opening the process of Kotlarz's beatification, as a martyr, the priests said that he was promiscuous and a drunkard. "Did it work, did it work!" - the archbishop explains to the young people referring to the methods used then.
The documents could also have been deliberately "fabricated". For example, Archbishop Rys found in the archives a letter from a communist activist praising Cardinal Wojtyla. "Why write a letter that was a total lie? So that, some time later, whoever went to the archives would find this letter [...]. It was a letter written in the hope of creating another memory," says the archbishop.
As you can see, it is easy to undermine the credibility of the theses presented in the media about the alleged cover-up of these cases by Cardinal Wojtyła. Unfortunately, the media campaign in Poland is strong, which may make many people think: Maybe there is some truth to it after all? This shows how important it is to think critically and to have at least a little knowledge about the past times in Poland.
The stakes are high. Nothing can harm the holiness of John Paul II, but undermining his authority in his homeland harms us ourselves, our identity. Because John Paul II remains for many people a point of reference and a guide. But the younger generations know less and less about him and did not have the opportunity to know him, so we must fight for his memory.
