Weigel discusses Communist infiltration of Church institutions
January 14, 2011
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.
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