Polish Rev. Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, a Dominican, holds his hands together as he talks to reporters outside a center for Polish pilgrims in Rome, Wednesday, April 27, 2005. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)

Rome—A Polish prelate who was close to Pope John Paul II has rejected stories that a priest at the Vatican worked as a spy during the 1980s, providing reports on the Pope to the Polish secret service.

The Institute for National Remembrance in Poland announced last week that Father Konrad Hejmo had been a paid informer for the Communist government during the 1980s. Father Hejmo has admitted taking money from suspected agents of the Polish government, but claimed that he did nothing in return.

In an interview published on May 1 by the daily La Repubblica, Cardinal Andrezej Maria Deskur said that charges against Father Hejmo are “absurd, inexplicable.” The Polish cardinal, who was close to Pope John Paul throughout the years of his pontificate, suggested that the charges against the Polish priest were an attempt to mar the reputation of the deceased Pope.

Cardinal Deskur, who met regularly with Pope John Paul in informal gatherings of the Pope’s countrymen, pointed out that Father Hejmo never had access to secret information about the Pope’s activities. The Dominican priest worked with Polish pilgrims visiting Rome; he had no special contacts with the Pontiff or with other officials of the Roman Curia. The only knowledge that Father Hejmo had about John Paul II, Cardinal Deskur told La Repubblica , involved “things in the public domain-- things that everyone knew.”

In his capacity guiding pilgrims to Rome, Father Hejmo knew the times of the Pope’s public audiences, the Polish cardinal acknowledged. But those times are posted in the mass media.

Leon Kleres, the director of the Institute for National Remembrance, had announced last week that his Warsaw-based group found clear evidence that Father Hejmo was an informant for the Communist government. Kleres said that the evidence would be made public later this month.