Investigators published a report Wednesday offering new details of allegations that a priest was an informer for Poland's communist government while he was close to Pope John Paul II's entourage in the 1980s.
The accusations against Rev. Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, 69, were first brought by the Institute for National Remembrance shortly after the death of Polish-born John Paul and fleshed out with the report released Wednesday on its Web site.
The report says Hejmo met secretly with communist agents from 1975 to 1988 in upscale restaurants and hotel rooms, giving them details about the church in return for money and gifts of liquor.
"We believe that Father Hejmo was one of the most precious sources of information for the Interior Ministry on the situation in the Vatican and in the Polish church in the 1980s," the 70-page report said in its conclusion.
But the state-appointed institute also warned that their opinion was of "a hypothetical nature" and should "be verified through further investigation "to get a complete picture of Hejmo, a Dominican who has been based in Rome since 1979.
Hejmo has acknowledged sharing reports that he wrote for Polish church officials with an acquaintance, a Pole who lived in Germany, and said he received money from the man through other priests.
But he has insisted he did not suspect the man might have been a spy, and he denied being a secret agent, describing his actions as "naive."
Among their allegations, the institute's historians said Hejmo met secretly with communist authorities while he accompanied John Paul to Poland in 1983, while the country was still under communist rule.
The report alleged that the priest received $12,600 between 1981 and 1988 as well as gifts including cognac and other liquors.
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