John Paul II and Chess

Pope John Paul II has been much in the news lately, and since he has a reputation as a chess aficionado, I thought I'd look up some of his contributions to the game and pass them along.

Browsing the web, I came across a mate in two (scroll to the bottom of the page); a chess analogy (when the pickings are slim, one has to dig deep), and an actual game.

Or so I thought. According to Mike Fox and Richard James's 1993 revised edition of The Even More Complete Chess Addict, pp. 16-17, the game and at least one problem attributed to the Pope were merely hoaxes, perpetrated by an unnamed Frenchman. On the other hand, the late Argentian GM Miguel Najdorf - a native of Poland, like the Pope - insisted that John Paul II did play and actually published a book of problems. On the third hand (why stop at two?), however, a search of Harold van der Heijden's magnificent and nearly comprehensive Study Database showed no entries for Wojtyla.

So, while it would be nice to see the creativity of John Paul II as expressed over the chessboard, it appears that we don't have any trustworthy examples to evaluate. If anyone knows more about the matter, however, their comments are more than welcome!