178 PIOTR H. KOSICKI
and Zawieyski up with Casaroli, Poggi, and Samorè in the 1960s
had earlier facilitated most of the contacts that the ZNAK move-
ment had not inherited from PAX.163 During the Council, they
also provided one-month scholarships to ZNAK activists coming
to Rome to cover Vatican II.
In addition, Konrad Sieniewicz and his Christian Democratic
colleagues Stanisław Gebhardt and Stanisław August Morawski
organized picnics, daytrips, and a host of other meetings for
their Polish visitors with “counterparts and potential partners
in similarly attuned quests” from Belgium, France, Italy, and the
Netherlands.164 While Janusz Zabłocki met the Flemish Catholic
labor leader August Vanistendael and attended a conference of
the French Catholic-socialist organization La Vie Nouvelle, Ty-
godnik Powszechny’s Jerzy Turowicz socialized with other Catho-
lic journalists, including Jan Grootaers, then editor-in-chief of
the Flemish Catholic monthly De Maand.165
These contacts were about far more than curiosity or bragging
rights. They also had tangible consequences for ZNAK’s ability to
translate conciliar teachings back to Poland. By 1964, Zabłocki
had decided to write a book about the evolution of what was then
called Schema XIII, which would subsequently become Gaudium et
spes. Given this project, his budding friendship with Vanistendael
struck in Rome proved to be like manna from heaven. The Belgian
labor leader was one of a select few lay auditors at Vatican II with
privileged access to confidential drafts of the conciliar documents.
Already at his first meeting with Zabłocki in 1964, Vanistendael
promised the Pole a copy of every draft of Schema XIII that came
- The Polish security apparatus offers copious corroborating evidence at
AIPN, BU 0785/7, 1–289. - Zabłocki, Dzienniki, 1:492.
- Vanistendael and Grootaers both also spoke at the same Brussels confer-
ence as Mazowiecki, Hourdin, et al., Mission et liberté des laïcs dans le monde, 15–33,
133–60. On La Vie Nouvelle, see Jean Lestavel, La Vie Nouvelle: Histoire d’un mouve-
ment inclassable (Paris: Cerf, 1994).