Month: June 2005

So on Friday B16 named JP2’s personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, to be the new archbishop of Krakow–the post Karol Wojtyla held before he became JP2.

Cool. A reward for a career of faithful service, no?

But on Saturday something emerged calling into question the precise degree of faithfulness that was involved: Archbishop Dziwisz announced that he had failed to burn all of JP2’s private papers, as called for in his will!

EXCERPTS:

Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who worked with the pope from 1966 until his death earlier this year, told Polish state radio there are "quite a lot of manuscripts on various issues," but he offered no details.

"Nothing has been burned," Dziwisz said. "Nothing is fit for burning, everything should be preserved and kept for history, for the future generations – every single sentence."

"These are great riches that should gradually be made available to the public."

Dziwisz did not say when or how that might happen.

In Saturday’s radio interview, Dziwisz suggested that some of the notes could prove useful in the late pontiff’s beatification process.

Now, I don’t know if Archbishop Dziwisz was himself charged with burning the papers, nor do I know if he was ordered not to do so by someone with the authority to give this order (e.g., B16), so I don’t know how to appraise his role in this.

Still, my feelings about this revelation are profoundly . . . mixed.

As they were when it was announced that JP2’s will called for all his private papers to be burned. I recognized that this represented a huge loss to historians, but on the other hand it was JP2’s will–and in his will–and you don’t disobey what someone says in his will.

I also have some sympathy for JP2’s desire. There have been people who’ve been badly burned historically by folks rumaging through their papers and the misrepresenting them.

It happened to Friedrich Nietzsche, for example. After he was institutionalized, his anti-Semitic, German-nationalistic sister went through his papers and "edited" them for publication. She also promoted what she proclaimed as "his" philosophy, which was really her own and which served to make Nietzsche an inspirational figure for Hitler and the Nazi party (contrary to what Nietzsche himself would have wanted).

While one hopes that the proper scholarly controls will be employed in any evaluation of JP2’s private papers, the potential for mischief is significant.

For one, we have no idea what state those papers are in. It may be that it will be hard or impossible to determine what was authored by the late pontiff and what wasn’t. People may have sent him drafts of things that found their way into his private papers, and some of these might be assumed to have been authored by the pope himself. Others’ (potentially lame-brained) ideas thus might end up being ascribed to JP2.

Also there is a fact that someone’s private papers are things that–by definition–the person did not intend for publication. Private papers frequently represent efforts individuals make at "trying out" ideas or ways of approaching a subject, only to have the individual himself conclude that this was a bad start that was unworthy of publication.

There may even be things in a person’s private papers where he tries to write out the strongest case he can make for a position he disagrees with–so that he can use this brief as a foil for later knocking down the position.

And then there is the danger of sensationalism–of an individual gaining (or claiming to have gained) access to the "secret" JP2 private papers and publishing books erroneously purporting to give his "true, private views" on matters.

Try to imagine what "historians" have done to Pius XII being done to JP2 to get an idea of what this could involve.

So while I am, on the one hand, pleased that JP2’s private papers are not lost to historians, I am simultaneously apprehensive about the use and misuse that might be made of them and concerned about the apparent violation of a clause of his will.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

So on Friday B16 named JP2’s personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, to be the new archbishop of Krakow–the post Karol Wojtyla held before he became JP2.

Cool. A reward for a career of faithful service, no?

But on Saturday something emerged calling into question the precise degree of faithfulness that was involved: Archbishop Dziwisz announced that he had failed to burn all of JP2’s private papers, as called for in his will!

EXCERPTS:

Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who worked with the pope from 1966 until his death earlier this year, told Polish state radio there are "quite a lot of manuscripts on various issues," but he offered no details.

"Nothing has been burned," Dziwisz said. "Nothing is fit for burning, everything should be preserved and kept for history, for the future generations – every single sentence."

"These are great riches that should gradually be made available to the public."

Dziwisz did not say when or how that might happen.

In Saturday’s radio interview, Dziwisz suggested that some of the notes could prove useful in the late pontiff’s beatification process.

Now, I don’t know if Archbishop Dziwisz was himself charged with burning the papers, nor do I know if he was ordered not to do so by someone with the authority to give this order (e.g., B16), so I don’t know how to appraise his role in this.

Still, my feelings about this revelation are profoundly . . . mixed.

As they were when it was announced that JP2’s will called for all his private papers to be burned. I recognized that this represented a huge loss to historians, but on the other hand it was JP2’s will–and in his will–and you don’t disobey what someone says in his will.

I also have some sympathy for JP2’s desire. There have been people who’ve been badly burned historically by folks rumaging through their papers and the misrepresenting them.

It happened to Friedrich Nietzsche, for example. After he was institutionalized, his anti-Semitic, German-nationalistic sister went through his papers and "edited" them for publication. She also promoted what she proclaimed as "his" philosophy, which was really her own and which served to make Nietzsche an inspirational figure for Hitler and the Nazi party (contrary to what Nietzsche himself would have wanted).

While one hopes that the proper scholarly controls will be employed in any evaluation of JP2’s private papers, the potential for mischief is significant.

For one, we have no idea what state those papers are in. It may be that it will be hard or impossible to determine what was authored by the late pontiff and what wasn’t. People may have sent him drafts of things that found their way into his private papers, and some of these might be assumed to have been authored by the pope himself. Others’ (potentially lame-brained) ideas thus might end up being ascribed to JP2.

Also there is a fact that someone’s private papers are things that–by definition–the person did not intend for publication. Private papers frequently represent efforts individuals make at "trying out" ideas or ways of approaching a subject, only to have the individual himself conclude that this was a bad start that was unworthy of publication.

There may even be things in a person’s private papers where he tries to write out the strongest case he can make for a position he disagrees with–so that he can use this brief as a foil for later knocking down the position.

And then there is the danger of sensationalism–of an individual gaining (or claiming to have gained) access to the "secret" JP2 private papers and publishing books erroneously purporting to give his "true, private views" on matters.

Try to imagine what "historians" have done to Pius XII being done to JP2 to get an idea of what this could involve.

So while I am, on the one hand, pleased that JP2’s private papers are not lost to historians, I am simultaneously apprehensive about the use and misuse that might be made of them and concerned about the apparent violation of a clause of his will.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)