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Polish Ordinaries, declares no longer binding the prohibitions contained in the
quoted “Notification.”
On July 12, 1979, in response to the Superior general of the Congregation of Marians
of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M., who in the name of the Provincial Superior of
the American Province of St. Stanislaus Kostka, of said Congregation, had asked for an
authoritative explanation of the scope of the text in the “Notification” of 1978, rescinding the
prohibitions to spread the devotion to The Divine Mercy proposed by Sister Faustina
Kowalska, the Prefect of The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ascertained:
In reference to that matter (raised in the letter of Father General) I have the
honor of informing you that with the new “Notification” (A.A.S., 30 June 2978, p.
350), arrived at in the light or original documentation examined also by the
careful informative intervention of the then Archbishop of Cracow, Card. Karol
Wojtyla, it was the intention of the Holy See to revoke the prohibition contained
in the preceding “Notification” of 1959 (A.A.S, 1959, p. 271), in virtue of which it
is understood that there no longer exists, on the part of this S. Congregation,
any impediment to the spreading of the devotion to The Divine Mercy in the
authentic forms proposed by the Religious Sister mentioned above [The Servant
of God Sister Faustina Kowalska].
Furthermore, St. Faustina‟s spiritual director lived long enough to give his sworn
testimony regarding her holy life and heroic virtues at the beginning of the canonical process
towards the declaration of her sainthood. Then, it was hardly three years and two months
after his death (which occurred on February 15, 1975, and which happened to be Sr.
Faustina‟s name day, as well as the day on which St. Claude Colombiére, S.J. – the spiritual
director of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus was revealed – died) that the 20-hyear prohibition concerning Sr. Faustina‟s writings
and proposed forms of The Divine Mercy Message and Devotion began to spread again with
renewed vigor throughout the world.
Exactly six months after the ban was lifted by Pope Paul VI, the Archbishop who
inaugurated her beatification process was elected Pope. The second Encyclical of his
pontificate was Dives in Misericordia (God, who is rich in mercy). It was published in
November 1980, and immediately hailed by Non-Catholics as among the greatest of Papal
Encyclicals, though it took Catholics almost a year to come to the realization of the timeliness
of and need for such a teaching. At that time, Pope John Paul II had not yet seen Sr.
Faustina‟s spiritual Diary.
Not only was Sr. Faustina beatified in 1993 and listed among the Saints during the
Jubilee Year 2000, but during the homily on the occasion of her canonization ceremonies the
Holy Father announced the extension to the entire Church of the Feast of The Divine Mercy,
for the establishment of which our Lord pressed the “Secretary” and “Apostle” of His mercy to
exert every effort. (Permission to celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter as the Feast of
The Divine Mercy was granted to Poland in 1995 in response to a request made to the Holy
See by the entire Polish Hierarchy.) Divine Mercy Sunday is being jubilantly and everincreasingly
celebrated in practically every country around the world. This happened a little
over sixty years after St. Faustina‟s death; whereas, it took a hundred years before the
Devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was officially established by the Church – in that
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