Archbishop Dziwisz now says that everyone misunderstands Pope John Paul’s orders regarding his private papers. The pope’s will as released after his death instructed that his private papers be burned. But the archbishop said after the announcement of his appointed as archbishop of Krakow that he wouldn’t burn any of them because they’re too important for posterity and could aid in his beatification process.
That elicited quite a bit of criticism from some who thought he was disobeying John Paul’s expressed wishes and others who believed that keeping around the half-formed thoughts and musings of a former pontiff was dangerous because they could fall into the hands of those who might use them to try to advance an agenda. Diogenes explicates this point of view well.
But now Dziwisz says that whatever the text of the will says, “the Holy Father gave me an absolutely free hand in the matter.” He also said: “It is my responsibility what to keep. And I absolutely don’t see that anything should be burned, destroyed. I think this belongs to the Church, to the society and to the general culture.” So there you have it.
Evidently Pope Benedict agrees with him and doesn’t think that’s out of order.
