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The decision by Pope John Paul II’s personal secretary to publish a books of the late Pope’s personal notes is attracting controversy and moral indignation in Poland.
Pope John Paul II’s last will and testament requested his notes be burnt.
However his former secretary, now Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, is soon due to publish a book in Poland entitled, “I am very much in God’s hands”.
Cardinal Dziwisz recently told reporters he “did not have the courage” to follow the late Pope’s last will and testament, however Poles are divided between praise and condemnation.
Associated Press reports that criticism has however outpaced praise.
“What kind of hyena would disregard the last will of a dead person?” wrote Maksymilian Przybylo in an Internet posting.
“A bishop who should be giving us good example is instead showing a lack of subordination toward his superior,” Anna Romejko, a student at the Catholic University of Lublin, said in an online post.
However Dziwisz, John Paul II’s closest aid, said recently, that he had no doubt about publishing them.
Noting the despair of historians after Pope Pius XII’s letters were burnt, Dziwisz told reporters, “These notes are so important, they say so much about the spiritual side, about the person, about the great pope, that it would have been a crime to destroy them.”
“In writing his will, the Holy Father knew he was entrusting these notebooks to someone who would treat them responsibly,” Dziwisz said.
Dziwisz recently told reporters he “did not have the courage” to follow John Paul’s orders.
Lawyers in Poland are not sure whether Dziwisz broke the law by disobeying the will — which explicitly said: “Burn my personal notes.” There is scant tradition in Poland of having will executors so the rules are not clear-cut.
The entire hard-cover book of some 640 pages, with photos of the pope and of the notebooks’ pages, contains deeply religious, compact, sometimes cryptic ideas or trains of thought that spring from citations from the Bible.
Pope Francis is soon to canonise Blessed John Paul II making him a saint.
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