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My son Stephen and I recently attended the golden wedding anniversary celebration of my friends Piotr and Teresa Malecki.
It began with a Mass of Thanksgiving in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Cracow’s Wawel Cathedral — the place where Piotr and Teresa had exchanged vows on July 4, 1964, kneeling before their old kayaking and hiking friend, the archbishop of Cracow (who, as St. John Paul II, was canonized two months before the Maleckis’ jubilee).
Network of Wojtyla’s friends
Piotr Malecki, Karol Wojtyla’s altar boy at St. Florian Parish and the self-described “enfant terrible” of that network of Wojtyla’s friends known as Srodowisko, is a distinguished physicist.
Teresa Malecka, who had to convince Wojtyla (whom she and others called Wujek, “Uncle”) that she was ready for marriage at age 20, is an accomplished musicologist and the former vice-dean of the Cracow Academy of Music.