Saturday, August 13, 2011

John Paul II's right hand man

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.