VATICAN II AND POLAND 169ture of the first category,” restitutio ad integrum.129 The disagree-
ment, rather, lay in the matter of who would take the leading role
in negotiations and their publicity. Gomułka did not want to cede
ground to Wyszyński, nor Wyszyński to Gomułka. To complicate
matters even further, in the course of the Council, Wyszyński
developed a profound distrust for Casaroli, the architect of Ost-
politik—this, despite the fact that Casaroli, Poggi, and Samorè
intentionally held ZNAK at arm’s length, looking to preserve
Wyszyński’s position.130 In fact, it was Wyszyński who nudged
them in this direction, undermining Zawieyski’s credibility in
memoranda to the Vatican insiders responsible for Ostpolitik.131
The matter would stop there, and normalization would have
to wait until 1972.132 Polish lay activists would look on dourly
while Communist and Catholic Church officials allowed their ex-
tensive efforts on behalf of diplomatic normalization to come to
naught. As Janusz Zabłocki observed in December 1963 after a
meeting with Poland’s ambassador to Italy, “while things are at
an impasse in the Vatican’s relationship with other socialist coun-
tries, with respect to Poland things are moving backward... I real-
ize what kind of news Warsaw needs to hear from Rome and what
end it is to serve. There can be no illusions about this: they are to
be ammunition serving the continued fight against the Church in
Poland.”133
- Zabłocki, Dzienniki, 1:502.
- Poggi prepared notes for Casaroli that repeated Wyszyński’s dismissal
of the activists of Znak and Więź as being no better than PAX, in other words—
“representatives of the Warsaw regime and its various agents”; Luigi Poggi, “Espos-
to dell’E.mo Sig.Card. Wyszyński circa eventuale accordo tra Santa Sede e Governo
polacco,” December 2, 1963, Archivio di Stato di Parma: Fondo Casaroli, Serie: Paesi
del Est, Sottoserie: Polonia, Imm.12 (provisional document record). I thank Roland
Cerny-Werner for sharing these files. - Wyszyński, “Indizi che dimostrano la tendenza del regime del Polonia ad un
accordo con la Santa Sede,” November 2, 1963, Archivio di Stato di Parma: Fondo Casa-
roli, Serie: Paesi del Est, Sottoserie: Polonia, Imm.12 (provisional document record). - Stehle, Eastern Politics of the Vatican, 347–48.
- Zabłocki, Dzienniki, 1:510.