CZECH TREASON TRIALS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26078, 3 April 1950, Page 7

CZECH TREASON TRIALS

Charges Against Clergy

REPORT BY STATE NEVYS AGENCY (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) PRAGUE. April 2 A charge that the Vatican sough fo destroy the People’s Democratii Republics and replace them by a nev Central European Federation under thi Hapst>urgs was made by the prosecu tor at the trial to-day of 10 high ranking dignitaries of the Romar Catholic Church who are chargee with activities against the State. The defendants are three abbot: who have the power of bishops, anc seven other churchmen, including < professor of theology and the rectoi of a college. All 10 are -accused o: high treason, and all except one wert also charged with espionage. Ceteka, the official Czech news agency, stated that the accused were charged with having worked for the espionage services of the Vatican, with halving carried on subversive activities against the Czechoslovak Republic on |>ehalf of the Vatican, a Powei hostile to Czechoslovakia, and with having plotted a coup against the State. Ceteka stated that the prosecutor tqld the court that each of the five different Roman Catholic orders represented among the accused had deceived specific tasks. The Premonstratensians, represented by three of the accused, were instructed to prepare an armed rising, and to this end concealed arms in their monasteries. The Jesuits, representied by three of the accused, were mainly concerned with espionage, the prosecutor said. The Redemptorists, represented by two of the accused, sought to influence the minds of youths and to return them to unthinking and willing tools of foreign reaction, he claimed. The Franciscans, represented by one of the accused, sought to sabotage Socialism in the villages and to prepare an armed rising, the prosecutor said, and he added that a Dominican was to be the link between these Church orders and the hierarchy. , Church Property Ceteka stated that American firearms and German automatic pistols and other llveapons. “bidden by the monks in the monasteries,” were exhibited in court to-day. Gold ano jewels which the monks at one monastery were alleged to have hidden away when the State took over all Church property under the new Church laWs,‘ Were also displayed. The State Prosecutor said that immediately after the war the Vatican ranged itself alongside American imperialism and missionaries of the Vatican were sent into Soviet Russia as spies.

, Ceteka stated that Father Augustin Machalka, abbot of -the Premonstrate monastery at Nova Rise, Moravia, had pleaded guilty to charges of high treason qnd espionage and confessed to haying part in a whispermg campaign against’the State. »«The agency stated that Father Machalka had replied “Yes,” in what was described as “a low and humble voice, when qsked whether he had hidden a loaded pistol in the church confessiqnal. Official sources in Prague later reported that two more Roman Catholic monks had pleaded guilty? The Prague radio said that two defendants, Dr. Sylvester Braito. a 51-year-old Dominicap friar, and a 40-year-old Redemptorist preacher, Father Jan Blesik, pleaded guilty to hign treason yesterday at the trial’s opening session in the Prague State Court. A third pleaded “partly guilty.” Three others pleaded “innocent.” The Prague radio said that Dr. Braifo preached the ! overthrow of the Czech regime and Father Blesik “used his high position for high treason and espionage against the Republic.”