Pope and cardinal united in life … and in death
The Catholic Register, 01 May 2021
The lives of St. John Paul II and soon-to-be Blessed Stefan Wyszynski deserve special attention this month.
The recent announcement (April 23) that Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski will be beatified in September brings to mind his dramatic final days in May 1981.
Forty years ago this May, the most outstanding churchman of the 20th-century sent an envoy to the second most outstanding churchman of the century.
The latter, Cardinal Wyszynski was dying. After 33 years of fighting the communist regime, the courageous prelate and brilliant strategist was in the final stages of abdominal cancer.
St. John Paul II could not go to the Warsaw bedside of the great “Primate of the Millennium,” so he sent his personal secretary, Msgr. Stanisław Dziwisz, to visit him on 11th-12th May 1981. Msgr. Dziwisz then returned to Rome.
The next day John Paul was shot in St. Peter’s Square. Msgr. Dziwisz would be at the bedside of another man fighting for his life.
By May 25, John Paul was weak but recovering and Wyszynski was approaching his death agony. They would speak for the final time that day, having been unsuccessful the day before. In the days before cordless and mobile phones, at first they did not have long enough telephone cables to reach the beds.
The dying cardinal, in great pain and only able to speak in short gasps, asked the recovering pope for his blessing. Wyszynski would die three days later. When his funeral was celebrated in Warsaw, John Paul sent a message, and celebrated Mass in hospital at the same time as the funeral in Poland.
Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was, until 1978, very much the junior figure to the heroic cardinal. At the conclaves of 1978, the media was fascinated by the cardinal from Kraków who liked to go skiing.
“It’s not unusual in Poland,” Wojtyła said. “In Poland, 40 per cent of the cardinals ski.”
When reporters pointed out that there were only two cardinals in Poland, Wojtyła explained. “In Poland, Wyszynski counts for 60 per cent.”
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