Polish archives have revealed a mudslinging operation against Ignacy Tokarczuk, an opponent of the Soviet regime
by Giacomo Galeazzi - Francesco Grignetti

Rome
The KGB and Polish secret services had formed a devilish alliance launching a smear campaign to bring down political opponents, by ruining their reputation. Polish archives have unearthed evidence of a “dirty” operation to smear the reputation of Ignacy Tokarczuk, he fearless bishop who is remembered as the “Chaplain of Solidarność”. It turns out a dossier Communist secret services produced, causing great embarrassment to the bishop, is just a fake and an attempt to smear his name. A very good attempt at that. The slanderous dossier had to go a long way to make itself look credible: it was published in Italy by the small Sicilian magazine “Sette Giorni”. Today, thanks to Mitrokhin, we know that this magazine was in fact controlled by the KGB. It was printed thanks to money that rolled in from Moscow. According to Soviet archives, the publication which appeared under the name “Beta” and whose editor was Carlo Longo, code-name “Kirill”, was considered to be a confidential report of the secret services.

“Sette Giorni” ( not to be confused with Italian magazine “Sette giorni in Italia e nel mondo” , whose editor is Ruggero Orfei) had already had its moment of glory, so to speak. In April 1980 it published a world exclusive on a particularly defamatory (and just as false) dossier targeting Elena Bonner Sacharov who was even accused of planning a number of murders. The story of this dossier is familiar to many by now. It was made up by the KGB to quell resistance from the Sacharovs who had become rather uncomfortable peas in the bed of the Kremlin. But little is known about the attempt to destroy the image of Bishop Tokarczuk.

The dreaded D Group which formed part of the IV department of Warsaw’s Ministry of Interior had started to focus its attention on the prelate and the role he played as spiritual leader to Solidarność activists. Piotr Litka – author of a book on Fr. Popieluszko (a Polish Catholic priest associated with the Solidarity union, who was murdered by agents of the Polish communist internal intelligence agency) and another on unknown facts and documents regarding John Paul II – explains that the D Group was found responsible for illegal searches, punitive threats, punch-ups, robberies, arson, torture and murder. Its evildoings were only discovered after the murder of martyr priest Popieluszko.  Fr. Bardecki who was Wojtyla’s main collaborator when he was still a bishop was beaten by two unknown individuals in the centre of Krakow in the autumn of 1977. A month or so prior this, the student Stanislaw Pyjas, a passionate Catholic activist in Krakow, died.

 Litka presents his discoveries in a book interview edited by Agnieszka Zakrzewicz that was recently published in Italian under the title "I labirinti oscuri del Vaticano" (“The Vatican’s dark labyrinths”). The book explains operation Triangle, Group D’s plan to blackmail and eventually destroy John Paul II’s image. The operation only just failed. Litka says that “In Tokarczuk’s case they fabricated a dossier to ruin the bishop’s reputation.”

The dossier was composed of three false documents written in English and supposedly carried the seal of Radio Free Europe, i.e. the CIA. The documents claimed that between 1943 and 1944, the then young priest Tokarczuk had cooperated with the Gestapo, helping identify a few dozen Communist partisans who were consequently arrested, tortured and shot. The Bishop of Lvov, Boleslaw Twardowski apparently sent a letter to the Metropolitan of Krakow, Adam Sapieha, Wojtyla’s predecessor, describing the facts. The fake letter was dated 8 March 1944. The dossier was particularly insidious because it suggested that even the new bishop-turned Pope had failed in his obligations too.

“These documents came from an anonymous sender, inside a sealed envelope,” the article published in November 1983 by Sette Giorni said. Now Litka tells us they were put together in one of the offices of the Ministry of the Interior in Warsaw. Polish secret services then turned to their elder brothers, the KGB, for help. And so the mysterious Catania (Sicily)-based magazine Sette Giorni came into being.

The alleged scoop caused a huge stir in Poland. Naturally, the Communist authorities in Poland strove to give Italy’s revelations as much emphasis as possible. They were translated and published in local newspapers, fuelling smear campaigns. Victims’ relatives sent letters demanding Bishop Tokarczuk give answers about his past and these were published. A judicial inquiry was opened. The Polish Church denounced these acts of provocation and firmly denied the facts. The case returned to the spotlight again two years later, in 1985, just as members of the D Group were being tried. They were eventually sentenced for Popieluszco’s murder. Italy’s “revelations” were exploited by the public prosecutor and the press which was controlled by the Propaganda Ministry. Yet another provocation.

When Bishop Tokarczuk died in 2006, L’Osservatore Romano published the following obituary: “He was Poland’s oldest bishop: he was ordained a priest in Lviv (now in Ukraine) in 1942 and managed to survive the war despite being sentenced to death. He experienced the terror of the Nazi and Communist regimes first hand and has always fought for the freedom of expression and religion. In 1965, Paul VI put him in charge of the Diocese of Przemyśl of the Latins and he was consecrated bishop by Polish primate Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. As a bishop he founded 220 new parishes and despite the obstacles, 430 new churches were erected between 1965 and 1993. These were often built quickly overnight and were built on as extensions to houses or barns. Mgr. Tokarczuk also helped the democratic opposition in Poland and was chaplain of the Solidarność Syndicate.”

©  vaticaninsider.lastampa.it   January 21, 2014