Tightening the Vice
The Foreign Secretary has already condemned the renewed persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, but it is to be hoped that time will be found in the House of Commons next week for a debate on the all-party motion which expresses the general detestation of the latest turns of the screw, and calls for a formal protest. Relations between the State and the Church in. Poland are governed by the agreement of 1950 by which the Church undertook to punish under canon law any priests guilty of participation in anti-State activities. This in fact gave the Government full opportunity to drag down the leaders of the Church wherever and whenever it chose to bring trumped-up charges. So it happened in the case of the Bishop of Kielce, Monsignor Czeslaw Kaczmarek, and the others accused with him early in September of the usual rigmarole of " espionage, anti-State propaganda and diversionary activities." The trial had all the 4inister features of the rigged demonstration, including the sickeningly familiar " confes- sions " couched in Communist jargon. The Bishop and the others were, of course, found " guilty " and given savage sen- tences. The Government's attention was now free to turn to the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, to see whether he would denounce the Bishop. On September 25 he preached in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw and told his congregation that however troubled the times, what really mattered was the " inner truth," the truth about oneself—that at least was secure, said the Cardinal, inaccessible to anyone without, not to be touched by " official investigators." He said no more, but it was enough. He was arrested on the following day and later suspended from his ecclesiastical duties and " permitted to retire to a monastery." In that news was heard the screech of the vice closing.
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