How To Satisfy Communist Investigators

One time, I heard him[Karol Wojtyla] recount, with a vein of irony, the times that he was called in by the police for the inevitable and frequent questionings. He was asked about his positions on politics, on society, on the structures of power. He answered them at length. He spoke to them about his personal concept of man, citing some contemporary thinkers but even Aristotle's Ethics and Plato's Politics. Then he would distinguish between the ethic of values in Max Scheler and the dangers of solipsism made concrete in 'reflecting on reflection."

Of course, the functionaries questioning him understood nothing of these long monologues. And in the end they would let him go, and write on their reports, "He is not dangerous."

"And they thought," he told me years later, laughing,"that one day, I too would end up collaborating."
Joaquin Navarro-Valls