George Weigel-- the author of the definitive biography of Pope John Paul II (Witness to Hope)-- has offered additional details of Communist regimes’ efforts to subvert the Church.
Speaking at the Pontfical North American College about his recently-released The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II -- The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy,
Weigel said that previously classified documents from Communist regimes
reveal that in the late 1960s, half of the seminarians and all of the
seminary rectors of the Pontifical Hungarian Institute were trained by
Hungarian intelligence.
“Weigel said communist moles were placed successfully at Vatican Radio,
at the Vatican newspaper and in pontifical universities,” according to a
CNS report.
“When Pope John Paul II was elected, he took some
counter-intelligence steps; for one thing, materials dealing with Poland
were no longer archived in the Secretariat of State but were kept in
the papal apartment.”
Weigel also stated that in 1983, Polish security attempted to smear the
Pontiff’s reputation, creating a fake diary that portrayed a decease
female employee of the Archdiocese of Krakow as the Pontiff’s lover.
The
security official who planted the diary in a priest’s home became
drunk, however, and started telling others what he had done.
SIC: CC/INT'L