Lumen 2018

S TANISLAUS P APCZYNSKI 192 At the Monastery Prison in Podoliniec The cruel treatment during his abduction and travel to Podoliniec made Fr. Stanislaus gravely ill, and it was in such a condition that he was thrown into a house prison there. Father Papczynski later wrote about those events saying that he was so ill at that time that he asked for the Sacrament of the Sick to be administered to him, but Fr. Opa- towski refused his request and forbade anyone to visit the prisoner. He forbade Papczynski to write a letter to the Superior General and to the Cardinal Protector. He treated him worse than some tyrants treat their victims. 154 After he had locked up Fr. Stanislaus in the monastery prison, Fr. Opatowski wrote to the Superior General, Fr. Cosmas Chiara, in the middle of January 1670, to inform him about the whole incident. But he did not reveal the true motives behind Fr. Papczynski’s ab- duction, i.e., the fact that the latter had placed himself under the bishop’s jurisdiction and refused to move from Kazimierz to another Piarist house. Opatowski gave the following reasons: 1) Fr. Papczyn- ski’s perseverance in his refusal to recognize the legitimacy of Fr. Opatowski’s election to the office of the Provincial Superior by the General Council, which did not have the right to elect the superiors of the provinces; 2) spreading a view that, according to the breve Ex iniuncto nobis, each professed member in simple vows could leave his religious house and move to his family home; 3) Fr. Papczynski’s claim that the Piarist houses were under the jurisdiction of the Or- dinary; 4) spreading other pernicious views. Father Opatowski’s accusations against Fr. Papczynski were either fictitious or biased. The issue of the legitimacy of the superiors and their election had already been discussed before. Regarding the sec- ond accusation, none of the documents states that it was in this very manner that Fr. Papczynski interpreted the papal breve. After its promulgation, he himself did not leave his religious house and did not advise his confreres at Kazimierz to do it, either. Attributing the claim that the Piarist houses were under the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary to Fr. Papczynski is also inaccurate. He may have only