Lumen 2018

those who asked St. Raphael’s intercession in various spiritual and material needs. 21 After his return to Poland, Fr. Papczynski sent a petition to the Holy See in the spring of 1692. In this petition, he wrote about all the matters that he had intended to discuss with the pope while he was in Rome. He asked the Sacred Congregation of the Bishops and Religious to order all deserters, who had left the Marians after re- ceiving a dispensation from the vows from their confessors or some theologians, to return to the Congregation. He expected that the Sacred Congregation would issue such a decree, by the power of which the simple vows made at his institute would have a more bind- ing power, such that only the Holy See could grant dispensation from them. It is interesting that in his petition Fr. Stanislaus did not continue the negotiations that he had started the year before in Rome to ob- tain permission for the Marians to adopt the rule of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and thus to obtain papal approbation. This might have helped to resolve the crisis within the Congregation of Marians that he was so concerned about. After discussing Fr. Pa- pczynski’s petition, the Sacred Congregation sent it to the nuncio in Poland to learn what his position in the matter was. 22 In August of 1692, Fr. Papczynski sent a second petition to Rome, in which he renewed his request to the Sacred Congregation for papal approbation for his Congregation and for incorporating it into the Order of Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the jurisdiction of the Franciscan Friars. The pe- tition was discussed on August 22, 1692, at a session of a commis- sion of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops and Religious, which instructed Fr. Stanislaus to take this matter to the pope himself. 23 This decision amazes historians. Why should Fr. Papczynski have to bring his request directly to the pope? Why didn’t the Sacred Con- gregation for Bishops and Religious follow the regular procedure in this case, according to which such petitions were presented to the 369 The End of Father Stanislaus’s Life