Lumen 2018

apology in its defense. 7 In 1671, when he was asking to be accepted again by the Piarists, two of the conditions that he set forth at that time regarded the ideal of poverty. 8 It should be indicated here that many data regarding this period of Fr. Stanislaus’s life come from the history of the Polish province of the Piarist Fathers written by Kraus. We should not, however, ac- cept everything that Kraus wrote about Fr. Papczynski. He was, after all, Papczynski’s opponent, and it must have been difficult for him to write about Fr. Stanislaus objectively. Hence, there are many ma- licious, ironic remarks and unfounded accusations against Fr. Stanis- laus in his writing. Kraus calls those who supported Fr. Papczynski’s views regarding religious observance “a party of Stanislavites” and his methods of operation — a “scheme” and a “conspiracy.” Yet, there was no conspiracy, but only an attitude and a desire to intro- duce religious observance while respecting all the legal requirements. 9 The other side, whose members included M. Kraus, W. Opatowski, F. Haligowski, and perhaps some other Piarists — all of them proponents of a more relaxed style of religious observance — did not constitute any formal organization, either. There were two groups then: the “observants” and the “laxists.” Fr. Papczynski bemoaned this situation when he wrote in Apology : “Both, the antipathy and the liking, particularly forbidden, were spreading widely in the Pious Schools, so much so that one could often hear: I am the supporter of Peter, and I am the supporter of Paul. Matters were evaluated not according to the requirements of justice but according to individual preferences and likings. This prac- tice assumed such proportions that the most worthy men were “honored” by persecution only because, by rightly following the stricter observance, they did not condone the frivolity and, indeed, the pride of others.” 10 As we speak about the conflict between Fr. Papczynski and some of his confreres, we must avoid exaggeration because the conflict did not last long and was limited only to a few people. Apart from the 165 At the Crossroads