The draft document was submitted to Poland's lower house, the Sejm, late on Wednesday, state news agency PAP reported.
Earlier in the day, Rafał Bochenek, the spokesman for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, announced in a tweet that "MPs will vote to adopt a resolution to protect the good name of St. John Paul II at this session of parliament."
Bochenek told the PAP news agency: “John Paul II is a great figure in the history of our nation. During his life, he was often persecuted by the security services of communist Poland. Today, he has yet again become the target of an unprecedented attack by a TV broadcaster created by people who had worked for the former security services.”
Bochenek added: “They fought John Paul II when he was alive and they are fighting him after his death. Today we, parliamentarians, must side with the truth, not with communist deception. We must side with values. We must side with the hero of our freedom, St. John Paul II. This is the aim of this resolution.”
'Smear campaign against great Polish pope’
The draft resolution submitted by the governing party says: “The Sejm of the Republic of Poland firmly condemns the disgraceful media smear campaign, largely based on the documents of communist Poland’s machinery of violence, against the great Polish pope, St. John Paul II.”
The resolution adds that “the attempt to discredit John Paul II by material that even the communists didn’t dare use, is based on methods that place its authors outside the civilisational sphere to which Poland has belonged since 1989.”
The draft notes that four years ago, Poland's lower house voted nearly unanimously to declare 2020 the Year of John Paul II.
'St. John Paul II has a special place in the history of Poland and Europe’
The MPs behind the resolution say that “St. John Paul II has a special place in the history of Poland and Europe" and that "his firm calls for his homeland's right to freedom among the nations of Europe, his practical defence of the rights of our nation made the Holy Father the foremost of the fathers of Poland’s independence.“
The draft resolution goes on to say: “We won’t allow anyone to destroy the image of a man regarded by the entire free world as a pillar of victory over the evil empire. Pope John Paul II is a symbol of Poland’s regaining of independence and of breaking free from the Russian sphere of influence, which was noted on numerous occasions in speeches by world leaders, including by US President Joe Biden during his recent visit to Poland.”
The document adds: “May our action serve as evidence for everyone seeking to deprive us of dignity and erase memory. John Paul II was a role model not only for the public, but for the whole political class, at the time of the birth of our democracy. Polish people and their democratically elected representatives will never allow his memory to be destroyed by means of documents fabricated by the communist system, which he had opposed.”
On Monday, Polish private broadcaster TVN24 aired a report detailing accusations levelled against three Polish priests in the 1970s and the response of the then Archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła, who in 1978 became Pope John Paul II.
The report also included comments from Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek, the author of a book entitled Maxima Culpa, the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, wpolityce.pl