POLAND: The Children’s Friends

The six-month-old agreement between the Roman Catholic bishops of Poland and the Communist Polish government broke down last week. In a recent letter to President Boleslaw Bierut, just made public, Primate Archbishop Stefan Wyszynski and Adam Cardinal Sapieha set forth a long list of grievances accumulated since the peace pact was signed.

Hundreds of priests, the letter declared, have been shadowed, menaced, tormented. Many have been jailed and sentenced to prison terms without trial. For refusing to sign the Communist-inspired Stockholm Peace Appeal more than 500 priests were barred from their classrooms. Seminary buildings at Wroclaw (Breslau), Olsztyn (Allenstein) and Opole (Oppeln) have been seized by the state. The religious press was being strangled by censorship. Religious instruction in more than 1,000 public schools ended when the schools were turned over to a Communist Association of Children’s Friends.

Last week the Polish government’s newly created Communist Office for Religious Affairs answered by charging that the bishops had violated Article III of the church-state agreement. In Article III the bishops had agreed to seek Vatican recognition of Poland’s new western frontier on the Oder-Niesse Line. The bishops had not been purposeful in pressing this request on Rome, and Rome had ignored it.