home a priest for allegedly spying on the late Pope John Paul II. Poland’s state agency overseeing the country’s communist-era files said Wednesday, April 27, that Father Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, who is a priest at the Vatican, spied on the late pontiff for Polish Communist secret services.
The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) stressed the priest informed on the Polish pontiff during the 1980s when Poland’s communist rulers battled against the Solidarity movement. Analysts say the pope raised the attention of Communist-era secret agents as he was a source of inspiration for Solidarity and some have suggested the Vatican funded anti-communist groups.
IPN Head Leon Kieres told reporters that Hejmo "was a secret collaborator of the Polish secret services under the names Hejnal and Dominik."
Hejmo, a Dominican, acknowledged late Wednesday, April 27, he had shared reports that he wrote for Polish church officials with an acquaintance, a Pole who lived in Germany, but said he did not suspect the man might have been a spy, several news reports said.
"I can blame myself for being naïve," he added.” I partly feel a victim of this situation now."
PRIVILILEGED ACCESS
Father Konrad Hejmo’s job at the Vatican gave him privileged access to some of the Roman Catholic Church’s most sensitive information when the pope was playing a crucial role in bringing down Communism in Europe, The Guardian newspaper said Thursday, April 28.
Father Jarek Cielecki, editor of the Vatican News Service, said the priest had been recalled to Poland by his superior "to clear up his position."
But Father Hejmo’s Dominican superior, Maciej Zieba, told reporters he had seen the files and that they were "convincing and shocking". Andrzej Paczkowski, a historian at the IPN, which investigates Nazi and Communist-era crime, reportedly said the dossier ran some 700 pages and also covered "earlier periods."
INFLUENTIAL FIGURE
Hejmo — a member of the Vatican circle of Polish clergy — has headed the Polish "Pilgrimage House", a hostel for visiting Poles, for many years. He also won wide media coverage in Poland for his "insider knowledge" of the state of John Paul’s failing health.
Polish law requires those seeking public office to declare whether they collaborated with communist-era secret services. Collaboration itself has no legal consequences, but lying about it does.
The head of the ruling ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance, Jozef Oleksy, was forced to resign as parliamentary speaker after a court said he had filed a false denial of collaboration. He is appealing the decision, Reuters news agency reported. (With reports from Vatican City and Warsaw)
