Communist secret police spied on Pope John Paul II

The Communist secret police knew when the late Pope John Paul II liked to shave, how many suitcases he owned, and what card games he played and with whom, decades before he was appointed pontiff.

He was put under surveillance from as early as 1946, with the regime’s attentions stepping up a level when the then Karol Wojtyla became auxiliary bishop of Krakow and later a cardinal, a conference on the late pontiff, held in Cork, heard.

Marek Lasota of the Institute of National Remembrance in Krakow said the Communist secret police identified Pope John Paul as a problematic ideological opponent to their regime in the early days of his priesthood.