Pope's secretary defends decision not to burn papal notebooks

Published: 2005-06-08

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II's former secretary has defended his decision not to burn the late pope's personal notebooks. "John Paul II gave me a free hand as to the future of his private papal notes," Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz told Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza daily June 8. "My responsibility lies in deciding what to keep, and I absolutely don't see anything to destroy in what was left. It belongs to the church and society." The 66-year-old archbishop, recently named to head the Krakow Archdiocese, said when Pope John Paul left Krakow for Rome "he took nothing -- only a pen, a few sheets of paper and some personal effects -- and he died leaving only things for daily use." In his will, Pope John Paul asked "that things which served for my daily use are dispensed with discreetly, and my personal notes burned." However, in a June 3 interview with Polish Radio, Archbishop Dziwisz said he had decided not to burn the notebooks, adding that the role of the Polish church would be to "care for John Paul II's heritage" and "nourish the seed so it bears fruit for the homeland and its church."

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