196 PIOTR H. KOSICKI
A bird’s-eye view shows that Vatican II fundamentally re-
shaped the course of Polish events in the final decades of the
Communist period. The transnational space that the ZNAK activ-
ists had encountered in Rome convinced them to be both more
independent of the hierarchy and more aggressive in the pursuit
of their own agenda. Even though the German bishops had dis-
appointed Wyszyński, ZNAK activists in the decade following
the Council entered into vigorous exchanges with lay activists
from both West and East Germany.221
These budding partnerships bred an ethos of reconciliation
and dialogue. Poles became open to Willy Brandt’s historic 1970
visit to Poland and then to the Holy See’s confirmation in 1972 of
Polish jurisdiction over the long-disputed dioceses.222 Although
it was Agostino Casaroli who negotiated the partial normaliza-
tion of relations between the Vatican and the People’s Republic
of Poland, both the episcopate and the laity played a role. In the
wake of the Millennium conflict, the bishops realized how cru-
cial the Holy See’s support could be, while the laity embraced the
Holy See’s turn to human rights and world solidarity.223
Italian Christian Democratic statesman Giorgio La Pira, an
icon of cross–Iron Curtain cooperation who visited the Soviet
Union in 1959 and corresponded with Gomułka throughout the
1960s, had written to the Polish general secretary in April 1966
encouraging him to endorse the Church’s millennial celebrations.
Poland, wrote the mayor of Florence, had a chance to become the
“grand bridge that joins the West to the East,” the guarantor of
“immeasurable hope for world peace.”224
strument: The Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland, 1967–1968,” in Anti-Semitism and
Anti-Zionism in Historical Perspective, ed. Jeffrey Herf (London: Routledge, 2007),
159–85.
- Kosicki, “Caritas across the Iron Curtain?,” 227–34.
- Karolina Wigura, Wina narodów: Przebaczenie jako strategia prowadzenia
polityki (Gdańsk-Warsaw: Scholar, 2011). - Dudek and Gryz, Komuniści i Kościół w Polsce, 250–55.
- Giorgio La Pira to Władysław Gomułka, April 10, 1966, Archivio della Fon-