(2 of 9)
Departure & Arrival. The hour of Wyszynski's departure for Rome had not been announced, but word spread quickly through the city, and by the time he arrived at the railroad station a large crowd packed the platform, weeping and cheering. Women brought flowers, jars of soup and freshly baked cakes for the journey. "May you live 100 years," they chanted, and when the train finally pulled out people still strained to kiss the cardinal's ring as he leaned from the window.
The crowd that met him at Rome's Terminal Station two days later was scarcely less enthusiastic. But the enthusiasm did not seem to reach the Vatican. The cardinal was met only by minor dignitaries; it was announced that the red hat would be handed over without ceremony and that the Pope would not be able to see his visitor until this week. Vatican spokesmen explained that the cardinal needed rest after his journey and His Holiness was unusually busy—in fact, he had a longstanding appointment with Rome's fire brigade.
Historic Vistas. The Vatican has a long memory. It remembers coexistence and martyrdom, and the infinite shadings between, in times, of Moslem invaders, stiff-necked emperors. Reformation heretics. Enlightenment atheists and revolutionaries without end. So long is the Vatican's memory that an insider can say casually of Wyszynski: "This man is the only free, active, dynamic cardinal in Russian-held territory since the Czars in 1430 ousted Cardinal Isidor, whom Pope Aurelius IV had sent to Moscow."
Accustomed to such historic vistas, many Vaticaners set about putting Cardinal Wyszynski in perspective. There are those who feel strongly that he has gone too far in coming to terms with the Reds. Wyszynski's cool reception was deliberately planned for two reasons: 1) to show that agreements with Communist governments, even when favorable to the church, are nothing to be endorsed eagerly, or for any reason but strict necessity; 2) to protect Wyszynski himself against the propaganda charge that he is a favored tool of the Vatican. Reported one Vatican correspondent: "If the Polish Communists or the Russians ever ask Wyszynski to persuade the Vatican to any particular course of action, Wyszynski might well reply: 'Go tell it to the Roman fire brigade.' " Insiders report, however, that Pius immensely admires Wyszynski, and entirely approves his policy.
Comparisons with Cardinal Mindszenty are inevitable. "The Poles are behaving like Hungarians and the Hungarians like Poles," is a saying that went the rounds last fall. Vast differences in the two nations' situations make direct analogy unfair, but the crack spotlights the contrast between the two cardinals: Hungary's hothearted, unbending Mindszenty, who fought a brave but disastrous battle with the Communists and wound up with the propaganda blunder of taking refuge in the American embassy; and Poland's coolheaded, intellectual Wyszynski, who emerged from three years' imprisonment with the will and the words to calm a people that was spoiling for the barricades.