VATICAN II AND POLAND 189traveled to meetings of the Pontifical Commission Iustitia et Pax,
one could see the growing interest in Rome in the person of Car-
dinal Wojtyła. He was becoming papabilis.” 200
It was this emerging reputation, alongside his active sponsor-
ship of synods and his delivery of the 1976 Lenten message in
Rome on Paul VI’s behalf, that ultimately carried Wojtyła to the
seat of St. Peter. Remarkable though the choice of a non-Italian
was in 1978 to follow the short-lived pontificate of John Paul I,
Wojtyła’s candidacy seems far less improbable in light of his rep-
utation gained through years of conciliar activism.
Coda: Concilium, Millennium, and Beyond
For Polish bishops and laity alike, the final months of Vatican II
were a busy time. In addition to the work of adopting and cir-
culating the final versions of the conciliar documents, the Poles
were preparing to celebrate a millennium of Polish Christendom
in 1966. ZNAK leaders like Zawieyski and Mazowiecki did not
hide their concern that the Marian devotion at the heart of the
millennial celebration might detract from the implementation of
conciliar reform in Poland.201
The Polish episcopate, meanwhile, used the Fourth Session to
try to show that Concilium and Millennium were complementary,
not contradictory. The bishops sent out fifty-six letters of pasto-
ral greetings in October and November 1965, inviting colleagues
from around the world to come to Poland on May 3, 1966, to cel-
ebrate the Polish Millennium. Among these letters, the greatest
care went into crafting the letter to German bishops. The result,
however, was a public scandal that shook Polish Catholicism.202
- “Określanie tożsamości.”
- “Milenium a dzień dzisiejszy—dyskusja redakcyjna,” Więź, no. 95 (1966):
3–65. - Kosicki, “Caritas across the Iron Curtain? Polish-German Reconciliation