Lumen 2018

Province within 24 days. 88 Father Papczynski was ready to comply with the Provincial Superior’s order “for the sake of peace,” but, as he wrote, he was held back by the priests from the Warsaw house, ready to leave with him. 89 After a few more dramatic episodes, a kind of armistice between Father Papczynski and the Provincial Superior followed. Papczynski promised to be obedient to him only on the outside, reserving the right to morally object to him as to an illegally elected superior. Opatowski accepted this kind of “obedience” in the hope of restoring peace at the Warsaw house. He promised to reveal his “il- legality” and allowed Papczynski to remain in Warsaw. 90 Mutual Accusations The atmosphere in the Polish Province of the Piarist Fathers re- mained tense. It was the result of a mutual lack of trust. People clashed and conflicts erupted very easily. Many hasty judgments and accusations were made. 91 One such situation occurred when Fr. Papczynski was accused of opening a letter addressed to the Superior General. In the summer of 1668, Fr. Stanislaus allegedly opened a letter in which Fr. Sigismund of St. Joseph Baranowski, a Piarist from Warsaw, 92 sent a certain amount of ducats 93 to the Superior General, Fr. Cosmas Chiara. The ducats in question were supposed to be in- side a sealed letter to Br. Jerome of St. Peter and St. Paul Wolski 94 in a separate envelope addressed to the Superior General. Around the same time, Fr. Stanislaus, too, sent a letter to Br. Wolski, and it was in that letter that mention was made about Br. Jerome receiving the money. There is nothing surprising in the fact that Fr. Stanislaus and Br. Jerome exchanged correspondence. They spent two years to- gether in Rzeszow where Wolski was Papczynski’s student, and it was also in Rzeszow that Wolski later spent the first year of his novi- tiate. They met again during Fr. Papczynski’s stay in Rome. 179 At the Crossroads