Lumen 2018

Preface 21 General, each time revealing the source from which they drew their information. Before each session, the witnesses obliged themselves under oath to tell the truth. They were also obliged to keep their testimonies secret and thus they could not share their remarks with others or instruct one another during the hearings. Such a procedure guarantees that the records of the [beatification] process in Poznan containing the testimonies of the witnesses can be considered one of the most reliable sources. It must be kept in mind, of course, that the information given by the witnesses was drawn not only from documents but also from ver- bal accounts provided by the people who personally knew Fr. Pa- pczynski or by people relating what they had heard from the people who knew him ( testes de auditu ). Since human memory is sometimes unreliable, there appear certain inaccuracies in the testimonies. 7 There is no doubt, however, that each of the witnesses tried to give an honest account of what he had seen himself or heard from others. These accounts can be verified by referring to the sources of infor- mation named by the witnesses, thereby to see to what degree the information provided by the witnesses is true. In any event, the tes- timonies of the witnesses are indispensable in order to reconstruct a faithful picture of Fr. Papczynski’s personality, life, and work. In the 19 th century, in his work which was published under the title Vita et Scripta Quorundame Congregatione Clericorum Regu- larium Scholarum in Provincia Polona Professorum , Varsaviae, 1812, 210-211, Fr. Simon Bielski, SP, wrote about Fr. Papczynski. Al- though this work appears to be somewhat cursory and bears traces of certain prejudices, nevertheless its author clearly includes Fr. Pa- pczynski in the circle of the Piarist Fathers who rendered great serv- ices to Poland and the Church. In 1843, the person of Fr. Papczynski was recalled by Louis Gorski whose article A Brief Historical Note about the Foundation of the Order of Marian Fathers in Poland and about the Life of Rev. Stanislaus Papczynski was published in Journal of Religion and Morality . Gorski availed himself of the biography written by Fr.