HOLY YEAR PREPARATIONS GOING AHEAD

Grey River Argus, 28 October 1948, Page 9

HOLY YEAR PREPARATIONS GOING AHEAD

I From John Talbot, Reuter's Correspondent]. VATICAN CITY (By Air Mail). Preparations for the 1950 Holy Year are going ahead with increasing momentum in spite of gloomy predictions in some circles that the international situation will prevent it from being held. By the time the summer holiday period, ends in the middle of October, it is. hoped that many of the various offices will be ready to house the committees and commissions which have already been formed in connection with the Holy Year. Work is now being speeded up on the huge Palazzo Torlonia on the Via Delia Concihazione iust outside the Vatican. The first floor of this palace will accommodate the General Secretariat for the Holy Year under Monsignor Sergio Pignedeli and the Reverend ■ Mario Udina: the executive office of the four Commissions—for spiritual assistance for sacred music, for congresses and for exhibitions respectively, and the office of the Presidency, which has been entrusted to Monsignor Valerio Valeri, assessor of the sacred congregation of the Oriental Church. In addition, the press office for the Holy Year, headed by Monsignor Albino Gallette. of the Italian Catholic Action, and his assistant Doctor Di Giacomo, will also have its offices in the Palazzo Torlonia. The majority of the more important offices for the Holv Year thus housed under one roof, and even on one floor of the nalace will be able to work in close collaboration. They will, of course, maintain close contact with the office of the Holv Year which will continue to work 'in the Vatican Secretariat of State as did the office of the Holy Year in 1925. If apprehension is felt by the organisers of the Holv Year, it is over the Itremendous “invasion!’ of .pilgrims from all narts of the world and the difficulty of finding sufficient accommodation for them. Many thousands of these pilgrims will not have enough money to meet ordinary Rome hotel expenses, and lodging for these must he found. Tn this sphere, the Catholic Action will be a great heln. Thousands of pilgrims will find lodging- in nrivate houses throughout the city and its suburbs Parish Priests in the coming months will be going from hnus° to house to' find out how many of the pilgrims it will be. possible' to house among the ordinary population. In addition, the Vatican itself is erecting new buildings which during the Holv Year, will he used as dormitories and when the Holy Year is over can be converted into offices. Although the arrangements for the Holv Year have really only just begun to gef under way. the organisers are undaunted by the problems faciaw them. They are certain that the Holv Year will bring with it the beginning of real world peace. According to report® received in Vatican circles, the Hungarian Government intends, within the next few months. to hold political elections to strengthen their position in the country. This, it is thought will coincide with a slight slackening in the Communist campaign against the Catholic Church in Hungary and with a renewal of the ouestion of the re-estab-lishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See. Such activities will be readilv ' recognised as nurelv electioneering propaganda with the aim of deceiving some of the Hungarian Catholic population into voting for the Government candidates. Since the Communists came into nower in Hungary, it is estimated in the Vatican that some 10,000 persons have managed to leave the country. This is. believed to be only a small percentage of those who wish to do so. Those Hungarians who have succeeded in escaping from the Communist persecution are mostly intellectuals. Parliamentarians and members of those anti-Communist political parties. The majority of these Hungarians. once they have crossed the frontier, try to reach the United States, where a Hungarian colony has existed for some time. Inside Hungary, the Government cnmnaign to suppress the activities of the Catholic Church continues to develop. The Infest move is an attempt to ston all religious manifestations. especially nrncessicms outside +i-o churches. Recently, a Hungarian Bishop asked for and actually ohtomed. through some bureaucratic s'in, the permission to hold a Religions Congress in h's diocese which would have had as its climax a religious procession through the streets of the citv. Realising their mistake at the last moment, the authorities nut. the whole d’oce®e into Quarantine on the false ground® that, there was an epidemic there, thus preventing Catholics from any othe” diocese from taking part in the celebrations.