Lumen 2018

lems of the Piarist house in Warsaw. The Nuncio promised to con- duct an apostolic visitation to investigate Fr. Haligowski’s actions but did not go through with it. Nevertheless, he ordered Provincial Superior Opatowski to investigate this matter. In response to this de- mand, Fr. Opatowski arrived in Warsaw in July of 1669, conducted a visitation, and issued a memorandum at its conclusion on July 20, 1669, in which he stated that Fr. Stanislaus should not be considered a firebrand in the province because, in everything he did, he was guided by zeal for a just cause. Finally, he threatened to punish any- one who should dare to call Fr. Papczynski a firebrand. 127 The memorandum issued by the Provincial Superior was signed by him and two of his assistants, Fr. Francis Haligowski and Fr. Adal- bert Siewierkiewicz. It should be added that it was issued not at Fr. Papczynski’s request, but at the Apostolic Nuncio’s order, which was indicated in its title and which is evident from Papczynski’s own state- ment in Apologia . 128 In this manner, the decision of the Provincial Chapter of 1667, accusing Fr. Stanislaus Papczynski before the Su- perior General of being a “firebrand,” was undermined by official tes- timony. The fact that this testimony was not supported by the Provincial Superior’s sincere, personal conviction as to the legitimacy of Fr. Stanislaus’s attitude in the conflict with his superiors, is a dif- ferent matter altogether. Papczynski was quite aware of this anyway, but was himself convinced that no one could, with a clear conscience, accuse him or try to prove that he had acted to the detriment of his congregation. The testimony of the Provincial Superior and his assis- tants gave Fr. Stanislaus a measure of personal satisfaction and was a kind of rehabilitation after such a long and painful struggle for a just cause. Father Opatowski’s order not to call Fr. Papczynski a “firebrand, instigator, and a traitor of the congregation” may have been re- spected within the province, but was of little significance in the future and did not contribute much to improving the relations between Fr. Papczynski and his superiors. 129 185 At the Crossroads