Cardinal Dziwisz and the Legionaries

Today he is a cardinal. But for decades he was John Paul II's personal secretary. He loved Founder Maciel (that link needs to be read in its entirety) and repeatedly stopped his boss from investigating him.

And in case you think there are no connections between the two major right wing political groups that John Paul II elevated and nourished, think again.

Such weighty protests have not moved John Paul II, whose views on Escriva's saintliness, and regard for Opus Dei in general, are well known. A few days before the first 1978 Conclave after the death of Pope Paul VI (which elected John Paul I, who died after only 33 days in office) the future pope paid a visit to the Villa Tevere headquarters and prayed at Escriva's tomb. After the death of the founder's successor, Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, in 1994, John Paul II returned to the prelatic church and knelt before the prelate-general's funeral bier. This bending of protocol - a pope only kneels before the earthly remains of a cardinal - was regarded by many as a sign of fidelity to the organisation that had done everything in its power to raise him to the papal throne.

In spite of opposition from Paul VI's closest adviser, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, in November 1982 John Paul II elevated Opus Dei to the unique status of personal prelature. Benelli had died of a sudden heart attack the month before. Since then the papal household has increasingly come under Opus Dei's domination.

The Work and its allies control the papal purse strings and the Vatican, after years of piling up deficits, now runs at a profit. It is claimed that the papal secretary, Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz, is an Opus Dei associate. During papal travels, Dziwisz makes a point of exchanging the customary Opus Dei form of salutation with local members. Opus Dei Archbishop Julian Herranz, one of the most powerful members of the Roman Curia, is co-chairman of the Papal Council of Advisers. His two co-chairmen are strong Opus Dei supporters, one of them having given key testimony to the Roman tribunal investigating Escriva's saintliness. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, a celibate lay member, holds ministerial status in the papal entourage.

Many authors have done John Paul II the kindness of not blaming him for the coverup. And that narrative can only make sense if Dziwisz was some sort of evil consigliere. But that really, really doesn't make a whole lot of sense; anyone who has read Marco Politi and Carl Bernstein's biography knows just how politically astute and aware the pope was. Right wingers credit John Paul II with the strategic sense to conspire with Casey, Reagan and Haig to bring down Communism and Poland. The Legionaries themselves state that

John Paul II himself was an outstanding example of “thinking outside the box” for evangelization—especially in his revolutionary way of dealing with the mass media.

So this pope who read all the newspapers, who handpicked just about every powerbroker in the Catholic Church, whose master plan destroyed Communism, who could out-think top media strategists, somehow was kept in the dark about an allegation that was published in a well regarded American newspaper and Italy's top newsmagazine as early as 1997, eight years before his death?

Much more likely: John Paul II felt that his larger goals for the Church were better served by keeping his favored institutions, Opus Dei and the Legionaries strong and active. They were top fundraisers, and their links with right wing groups like our own Republican Party made them the perfect vehicles for the social change he wished to see carried out in Europe and the Americas. His conclusion was, really, one any cost-benefit analysis would result in: a few sins here and there by this founder or that one were hardly an onerous price for saving the world.

His Republican backers in the United States referred to him as "John Paul the Great" within minutes of his death. They chanted "Santo Subito" in an Italian they pronounced as badly as the Latin they planned to foist on everyone.

In a few years, their fervor and money, coupled with the ignorance of too many faithful, will result in his canonization.

But how many will buy his medallions a hundred years from now, once the truth is out?

I think I know the answer.