DEFIANT SPEECH BY DR. BERAN

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25834, 20 June 1949, Page 7

DEFIANT SPEECH BY DR. BERAN

Church And State In Czechoslovakia POLICE WATCHING PALACE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) I R T e , c . 8 P„ m ) r, .LONDON, June 18. t>.“ e Catholic Archbishop of Plague (Dr. Beran) to-night issued a against the Commynist Government in its war to gain c °ntrol of the Church. m ? r ' Berai ? a congregation in a monastery in Prague: “I come to you and swear to you that I shall never sign an agreement that violates the laws of the Church.” Hundreds of Roman Catholics who followed Dr. Beran back to his palace shouted: “We will never let them lake you.” From the balcony of the palace Dr. Beran smiled, and answered: "I believe you, but you had better go home. Don’t let them try to represent this as provocation.” According to authoritative information reaching the Vatican, Dr. Beran is able to come and go freely. Czech police activities have been limited to the watching of his palace. Vatican sources emphasised that this news did not lessen the extremely grave view they took of events ip Prague. _ Agency correspondents report That Dr. Beran’s staff in the porters’ lodge has been replaced by members of the new pro-Government Catholic Action Committee or security’ police. Dr. Beran’s mail is stopped, and friends, including those in the* diplomatic corps, are turned away. Reliable sources confirm that State police have closed about 20 Roman Catholic cloisters in Slovakia, and that Dr. Antonin MandJ, secretary of the Church’s secular Catholic Action Organisation, is in a Prague prison. Rudolf Doerner, Dr. Beran’s Chancellor. is reported to be still held at security police headquarters. ® Dr. Beran Criticised Father Josef Plojhar. the Czechoslovakia Minister of Health, and a suspended priest, said in Rome last night that there was no real quarrel between the Church and the State in Czechoslovakia, but only between Dr. Beran and the Government. “Archbishop Beran is wholly antiGovernment. Such an attitude is not possible.” he said. Father Plojhar, who was suspended from priestlv functions by the Roman Catholic bishops after he had decided to remain in the Government, is in Rome for the second assembly of the World Health Organisation. The “Daily Telegraph" compares the conflict between Church and State in Czechoslovakia with the conflict in Hungary. "Monsignor Beran, like Cardinal Mindszenty, is under attack because he has opeply resisted a series of attempts by guile and coercion to destroy the Church’s influence,” it says. “Wherever a police State on the ‘people’s democracy’ model is set uo a conflict with the Church is inevitable. No totalitarian system can tolerate organised preaching and practice of the Christian religion.”