The Pope was challenged by both the left and the right, both by the revolutionary Philo-Marxist movements and by the regimes of the so-called national security, which stuck to a (false) Christian label.
In Nicaragua, he was challenged by sandinists and obstructed his speech to the people. In El Salvador, at the behest of the government, the Cathedral was closed and Pope Wojtyła barely managed to enter it only to pray at Archbishop Romer’s tomb. In Chile, he was ostentatiously abused by Pinochet, forced to show up with him on the balcony of Moneda Palace…
It’s been so many years. On various occasions, it has been revealed what the facts really looked like and what a precise strategy behind it was to manipulate and use the papal visit for propaganda purposes. And, yet still some – perhaps only in bad faith – use the image from that balcony scene to claim that the Holy Father was vouching for the then Chilean government. They leave, first of all, a certain detail that can explain everything. It is not mentioned what happened a while later. The Pope, in a private conversation, said with all openness to Pinochet that “the time has come to hand over power to the civilian government, to return to democracy.” And, immediately after the meeting with Pinochet, he had another meeting with representatives of the opposition, although all political parties were still illegal at the time.
With the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaw BM Publishing House, Krakow 2013
