Lumen 2018

S TANISLAUS P APCZYNSKI 212 A month had passed since Papczynski made the above statement, but he was still wearing the Piarist habit and it did not look like he was going to take it off soon. The more so that he was full of doubts at that time as to whether he should not return to the Piarists. He even made some efforts to that end. It is difficult to understand how this could have happened when we recall how eagerly he had tried to obtain his release from the congregation for over a year, how he was still working on it in the first half of December 1670. In order to understand this unexpected change of attitude, we must take into account that, towards the end of 1670, he was troubled by — as he would later confess — doubts regarding his move from the religious life to that of a diocesan priest, in which he could not find himself. 238 His doubts were deepened by the fact that Bishop Oborski, so help- ful up to that point, refused his assistance in founding a new con- gregation, which made it impossible for Fr. Papczynski to put on a new habit. 239 Being so torn inside, Fr. Stanislaus wrote a letter to the Superior General of the Piarist Fathers at the beginning of 1671. In the middle of January, when Fr. Michael Kraus stopped at Kazimierz on his way to Rome, Fr. Stanislaus asked him whether he could be accepted back to the Piarist Congregation if the Superior General should give his permission. 240 Father Kraus refused this request and said that he could not accept Fr. Papczynski because he had just received an order from the Superior General to remove him from the congregation. Since such a decision was made, he did not want to oppose it. 241 Then, unyielding Fr. Michael went to Auxiliary Bishop Oborski and asked that he use his authority and force Fr. Stanislaus, now a subordinate of the Ordinary, to give up the Piarist habit. The bishop summoned Fr. Papczynski and reminded him what he himself had promised to do not so long ago, adding that he [the bishop] had vouched for Papczynski with his own authority when he assured the Piarists that this matter would be settled once and for all. Still ill-dis- posed towards Fr. Stanislaus, the Vicar-Provincial Superior of the Pi- arists wrote that Papczynski procrastinated returning the habit in the