Monsignor Paolo Hnilica, Slovakian, persecuted
by the communist regime in Prague, a member of the Church of Silence in
exile, founder of the "Pro fratribus" Foundation,
who committed himself to helping Catholics living beyond the Iron
Curtain.
They also shared the same concept of faith and a special
devotion to the Virgin Mary.
In 1997, for example, Hnilica wrote an open letter
to the prayer groups on the controversial issue of Medjugorje: "This
river of light, life, peace and love for the Mother of God has generated
prayer groups everywhere, inspired conversions, and continues to heal
and comfort the hearts of all Christians who have found in the
simplicity of the message of the Queen of Peace an authentic direction
to rediscover the Gospel and return to the heart of the Church...
Unfortunately, since the message of Medjugorje,
just like Fatima's, speaks of peace and conversion, the path of the
Church is not an easy one, sharing the same fate of the prophets: many
conversions but also much persecution; so much grace but also many
fights; and like the prophets, only after much suffering and
tribulations, men come to truly understand the importance of it. We know
that voices have risen against Medjugorje, but this is not the first
time that different opinions clash in the matter of supernatural
intervention, inside the Church community and even among bishops. "The
world is losing the supernatural, people are finding it in Medjugorje
through prayer, fasting and the sacraments," said the Holy Father some
years ago ..." . In December 2004, Bishop Hnilica granted a long
interview to journalist Marie Czernin for the German Catholic magazine
"Pur".
Bishop Hnilica, did you speak to the Pope about the events of Medjugorje?
Hnilica: I visited the Holy Father in 1984. We
met at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence, and I spoke to him about
the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which I
performed in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Moscow on March 24th of
that year, as Our Lady of Fatima asked.
When I told this to the Holy Father, he was very touched and said: "The
Virgin Mary has led you there under her protection."
I replied: "No,
Holy Father, She took me there in her arms."
Then he asked me what I
thought of Medjugorje and whether I had already been there. I told him
that the Vatican had advised me not to.
The Pope looked at me and said:
"Go to Medjugorje incognito, as you went to Moscow. Who can stop you
from doing that?" .
The Pope did not officially authorize me to go, but
he found another solution.
The Pope showed me a book about Medjugorje
written by Rene Laurentin. He began to read some chapters and pointed
out that the messages of Medjugorje are closely related to those of
Fatima. "Medjugorje is the continuation of Fatima. The Madonna appears
for the first time in communist countries because of the problems that
come from Russia," said the Pope, who had already embraced it as a
mission of his pontificate.
I understood the connection. After talking
with the Pope, I visited Medjugorje incognito three or four times. But
the Bishop of Mostar wrote me a letter in which he asked me not to visit
Medjugorje anymore, and that, had I refused, he would have written to
the Pope himself. It seems that somebody had informed him of my visit.
However, there was no reason to be afraid of the Holy Father."
Did you have any other chance to speak with the Pope about Medjugorje?
Hnilica: Yes. We talked about Medjugorje on August
1st, 1988. A group of doctors from Milan, who had examined the
children, came to visit the Pope at Castel Gandolfo. One of the doctors
mentioned that the Bishop of Mostar had thwarted them in their work.
The Pope said: "As he is the bishop of that land, you have to respect
him."
Then he continued in a cordial tone: "But he will answer to God if
he is acting unfairly."
The Pope then thought for a minute and said:
"The world today has lost the sense of the supernatural, that is, the
sense of God. But many people rediscover it in Medjugorje, through
prayer, fasting and the sacraments."
This is for me the strongest and
most explicit testimony on Medjugorje. What has especially and deeply
impressed is that the doctors who were there said "Non constat de
supernaturalitate", while the Pope, by contrast, had recognized long
before that the events taking place at Medjugorje are indeed
supernatural. Through various sources, the Pope came to the conclusion
that there you can experience God...
In 1991, ten years after the first message
"Peace, Peace, Peace" when the war broke out in Croatia, I met again
with the Pope and he asked me: "How can
you explain the apparitions of Medjugorje, as the war scourges Bosnia?”
Really, the war was horrible. I replied: "It seems that we are in the
same situation as Fatima. If Russia had been consecrated to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Second World War and the spread of
communism and atheism could have been avoided. Holy Father, after you
consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1984, many changes
took place in Russia and the fall of Communism began. Our Lady in
Medjugorje had warned that the war would have broken out if we had not
converted. Nobody took these messages seriously. Perhaps, had the
bishops of former Yugoslavia accepted these messages more seriously,
this would not have happened. But of course this would not have meant a
full acknowledgement by the Church on the fact that apparitions continue
to date."
Then the Pope said: "So, Bishop Hnilica, is it true that my
act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was effective?”. I
replied: "Certainly, it was! The only question is how many bishops
really did that act of consecration together with the Holy Father."
Why is it so important?
Hnilica: This expresses the collegiality of the
Church, in other words it is the unity of the bishops with the Pope that
gives to it a deeper meaning. In 1978, when Karol Wojtyla was elected
Pope, I congratulated to him, but I immediately told him that something
would be missing in his pontificate if he hadn't consecrated Russia
together with all the bishops. He said: "If you can convince the
bishops, I'll do it tomorrow."
Therefore, after the consecration on
March 24th, 1984, he asked me how many bishops had concelebrated with
me. As I could not answer his question, the Pope said: "Every bishop has
to prepare his diocese, each priest his community, every father his
family, because Our Lady said that the laymen must consecrate themselves
to Her Heart."
The confidential relationship between Wojtyla
and Hnilica was enlightening. Their mysticism.
At the hearth of their
talks, the atheism of Soviet Russia, the fight against communism, the
sense of isolation in an inhomogeneous Church, the loneliness of these
"soldiers of the faith", who did not feel to be understood in Rome, the
individual raids at their backs, if they were against the official
hierarchy. Bishop Hnilica, a Jesuit, for his entire life has struggled
like a lion for his foundation, looking for funds and support
everywhere. The costs were huge. The books
he published were translated into several languages, printed and then
secretly brought to the East.
But there is one book that interests us more than
all the others. Entitled "The attack to the Pope in the light of
Fatima", Fratribus Pro ed., first publication in German in 1983. French,
English, Polish, Italian, Spanish and Russian versions followed. Jesuit
Sebastian Labo, Slovak, Bishop Hnilica's assistant and driver, wrote
it.
Who is Labo?
The expert on Vatican affairs Renzo
Allegri, describing his talks with Mother Teresa of Calcutta a few years
ago, wrote the following line: "I was always accompanied by Bishop Paul
Hnilica, her Slovakian bishop friend and collaborator, who had
introduced me to her. As always, Mother Teresa was waiting for us
outside, walking under some big trees... Bishop Hnilica offered to
accompany her to the Vatican with his car.
"Willingly," replied the
Mother with a smile. She sat in the back seat and I had the privilege to
sit beside her. Bishop Hnilica sat down next to the driver, who was
father Labo, a Slovakian skilled driver, who was able to dart in the
chaotic traffic in Rome with an incredible self-confidence.
"With him,"
Monsignor Hnilica said, "we'll make up for lost time and we'll surely
arrive on time in the Vatican". At that time, today's strict Highway
Code regulations were still to be issued. The car took off quickly...".
Well, it's the same father Labo, factotum at the
Pro Fratribus Foundation, who wrote the book on the attempted
assassination of the Pope. For the first time, the failure of the
Turkish killer was connected to the protection of Our Lady of Fatima, a
subject very dear to Karol Wojtyla. But there is also plenty of space to
follow the Soviet conspiracy track.
On page 131 of the Italian edition,
he writes about a possible involvement of the KGB, behind Agca's
actions. "This possibility had already been mentioned in a report of May
19th of the secret services of a Western country." Details followed.
Journalist Anna Maria Turi, who would curate the
publication of Ali Agca's book, "My truth", said that "father Labo, on
May 19th, 1981, being in Rome for some spiritual exercise, was visited
in Bishop Pavel Hnilica's house by two men of the Italian secret service
(he said during a recorded interview), who handed him some printed
material, describing the facts behind the attack."
Very interesting.
The
contacts between Hnilica and Labo with the SISMI, the Italian military
security and intelligence service. The timing. Just a couple of days
after the attack, an informative report on the background was already
circulating; its content would then be published by Pro Fratribus in a
new book.
But there's more: many years later, in a completely different
criminal proceeding, a house search was ordered at the home of a former
secret agent, Francesco Pelaja, a man of trust of Giuseppe Santovito,
Director for the Relations with the Holy See, who was then appointed as
Head of the SISMI headquarted in Luxembourg. Pelaia was a former priest,
defrocked in 1962, who had long worked for several Christian Democrat
ministers, before joining the SISMI, by pulling some strings, at the end
of 1979.
Pelaia introduced General Santovito to Cardinal Casaroli.
At his home, a rich harvest of secret documents was confiscated, which
should have never left the archives of the Sismi.
Among others, the one that interests us was there.
Dated May 19th, 1981, classified "Very confidential", entitled "News
about the attempt on John Paul II," it reported that, according to the
reliable sources, the attack was planned and organized by the Soviet
military service, the GRU, on the recommendation of the Minister of
Defense, Marshal Ustinov.
In short, it is argued that the Solidarnosc's
rising influence frightened the Kremlin, but according Soviet analysts
he would not have had a chance without the charisma of Pope John Paul II
and the support of Cardinal Wyszynski.
The Cardinal's irreversible
disease, however, convinced the Soviet government to stage up the
attempt of a "lunatic" to the Pope's life.
The confidant of John Paul II
In November 1980, a meeting of the defense
ministers of the Warsaw Pact was held to review the plan; many allies
had shown hesitation, except the representative of the GDR, but in the
end the Soviets's proposal was accepted.
Later, the KGB thought that Agca was the right man for the job, a
perfect killer to be passed off as an Islamic extremist and a right-wing
extremist. The operation was extremely complex: right-wing Turkish
officers would help him escape from prison, believing to help a comrade
in distress; Soviet agents would train him in a secret camp in the USSR,
decorated so that Agca would believe to be training in Lebanon, at a
Palestinian camp; the plan was to seriously injure but not kill the Pope
and therefore Agca would be trained for a long time to hit a person
standing on a pick-up truck.
The Prior judge investigated on this matter for
a long time. He found a copy of this odd report in the so-called
Cogliandro Report, named after the head of
the Counterintelligence Center in Rome, a SISMI colonel. The judge also
verified that this report was sent on May 25th, 1981, to the Director
of the SISMI (and probably left by him at Pelaia's house), the Defense
Minister Lelio Lagorio, and the Secretary of the Presidency of the
Council, attaché for intelligence services, Francesco Mazzola. But not
the judiciary.
Now, whether the content of the Cogliandro Report is true is not important;
the important thing is the use that they made out of it; even before
submitting it to the Italian government, the SISMI report was already
available to father Labo and Bishop Hnilica, who used it to write the
book and probably beyond that.