Fr. Mieczysław Maliński
Posted on 02/16/2007 11:08:48 AM PST by lizol
Close friend of Pope John Paul II a communist spy?
14.02.2007
Fr. Mieczysław Maliński, a well-known priest from Kraków and a close friend of John Paul II from the times before Karol Wojtyła became Pope, was registered as a collaborator of the communist secret services, reveals a book based on the communist archives investigated by the Polish Roman Catholic Church historical commission.
Report by Joanna Najfeld
According to the documents, Fr. Maliński was to start cooperation with the communist intelligence back in 1960s when he was in Rome. There, he was to provide information on Polish priests taking part in the Second Vatican Council, including the then head of Poland's Catholic Church, Cardinal Wyszyński.
Later, in the 1970s Fr. Maliński was to be registered as a secret collaborator under the codename 'Delta', though no official loyalty statement signed by the priest has been found in the communist archives.
This is not the first time that allegations of Fr. Maliński's involvement with the communist intelligence have come to light. Back in 2005, the weekly WPROST published and article accusing Fr. Maliński of collaboration with the regime. A year later, more rumor on the subject caused the liberal Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny to postpone cooperation with Fr. Maliński.
Investigative journalist Leszek Szymowski:
'In the 1990s there were many historians who suggested that Fr. Maliński, as a friend of John Paul II was a secret agent with the codename "Delta". But up to now, the historians were not sure. Mieczysław Maliński was one of the best friends of Karol Wojtyła, who later became Pope John Paul II. It's not a mystery now that the secret services wanted to know everything about Cardinal Wojtyła in the 1960s and the 1970s and they wanted to have as many agents as possible. One of these agents was Fr. Maliński, who had very good relations with Wojtyła, when Wojtyła was a priest, bishop, archbishop, cardinal and then the Pope. In the plans of the secret services, Fr. Maliński was to inform the officers about everything connected to Karol Wojtyła. The question now is, if Fr. Maliński really knew what he was doing. I think that Pope John Paul II would also like to know why one of his best friends betrayed him and did that for so many years.'
Today, Fr. Maliński denies the charges, as he did when first accusations of this kind started to surface. Since the first media relations, Fr. Maliński has kept insisting that he talked to the communist functionaries only when he was visiting them to submit his passport after coming back from abroad. He has said that his intention was to evangelize the communists.
'I wanted to share with them this enthusiasm which I had in my heart, to convince them to the Pope, to the Church, to Christianity, to Catholicism.'
However, according to the archives, Fr. Maliński did not just provide general information, but elaborated critically and in detail on the reality of Poland's Catholic Church. According to the communist documents, Fr. Maliński displayed a negative attitude to the then Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszyński, and spoke in a very positive way about Cardinal Wojtyła, later the Pope.
Communists fiercely attacked the Church and targeted it from every angle in an attempt to destroy its status as a haven of freedom and dignity. We have to bear in mind that contrary to the impression one might get from hearing revelations about communist agents among priests, the Catholic Church in the times of communism heroically opposed the oppressive system, argues opinion journalist Szymon Hołownia of the Polish "Newsweek". We have yet to learn how to deal with the painful legacy of the past. Christian sympathy and forgiveness is the key to this. Szymon Hołownia:
'The guilty should know how to deal with their weaknesses, admit to their mistakes and ask for forgiveness. We should stop getting excited about this but instead treat these people as a Christian should treat a sinner and as we ourselves would like to be treated when we admit to our own mistakes.'
Fr. Maliński has promised to explain his stand on the case in his upcoming autobiography entitled What a great life I've had.
Marx happens. To everyone.
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