BELARUS Belarusian government steps in to defend Catholic priests

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The state newspaper Minskaja Pravda has asked to avoid the publication of satirical articles against the Catholic Church. Intervention of the Apostolic Nuncio in Minsk, Monsignor Ante Jozič. Priests painted as Nazi collaborators; the memory of the martyrs of Rositsa marred.

Moscow (AsiaNews) – The Belarusian Ministry of Information has asked the editorial staff of the state newspaper Minskaya Pravda to take steps to avoid the publication of documents similar to the recent satire and violent criticism of the Catholic Church.

On September 7, the newspaper had placed on the front page an illustration with a scathing caricature of Catholic priests, portrayed as collaborators of the Nazis, alongside an article titled “The mutation of faith, crosses may be varied”, in which the Christian symbol has been replaced by a swastika.

The ministry submitted its request on October 1. The management of Minskaya Pravda assured the government that it will comply with all recommendations, the BelaPAN website reports.

“The editorial staff held a meeting with the leaders of the regional administration, during which the necessary measures to avoid further similar cases were worked out,” the note read.

At the ministry, they also specified that the article in question had been analyzed with experts from the Commission of Religious Affairs and Nationalities, according to which “such a publication, in our unanimous opinion, does not allow to preserve harmony and interfaith peace. in our country.”

After protests from the Catholic bishops of Belarus and an intervention by the apostolic nuncio in Minsk, Bishop Ante Jozič, a group of citizens called on the government to intervene. The request stressed that “such publications directed against representatives of the clergy are unacceptable, offensive and worrying not only for Catholic priests, but for the entire Belarusian people.

According to the petitioners, “such things appearing on state media seem to us an attempt to incite religious hostility towards the Catholic Church and its followers.”

The authors of the petition demand the violation of the norms on freedom of conscience and religious association, as well as the crime provided for in article 130 of the Belarusian Penal Code, which speaks of “incitement to hatred and racial conflicts, national and religious ”. This crime is also covered by the Convention on National Security of the Republic of Belarus.

The caricature mainly depicted priests Jurij Kašira and Antonij Leščevič, who were brutally murdered by the Nazis in the Rositsa massacre in 1943 for refusing to abandon their parishioners. The Trinity Church in the village of Rositsa, in the Vitebsk region, is still the destination of continuous pilgrimages today. At that time, the Nazis carried out demonstrative action against the partisans hidden in the surrounding countryside, attempting to isolate an area of ​​more than 40 square kilometers, burning 300 trees on the Belarusian-Russian border and destroying settlements as well.

The German troops gathered the inhabitants of Rositsa in the church; the prisoners waited five days for the “verdict” of the Nazi court, supported by the two local priests, the only ones who could enter and leave the church and bring food to the faithful, as well as spiritual comfort. The Nazi occupiers sent the young men to the lagers, then burned the elderly, the sick, children and pregnant women alive in the stables outside the church. The priests could have saved themselves, but they decided to burn themselves to death with their parishioners. A total of 1,528 people died in Rositsa.

Bro. Jurij and Bro. Antonij were canonized in 1999 as martyrs, and twice a year the pilgrims gather, in February for the anniversary of the massacre and in August for the patronal feast, bowing before the big cross erected in memory of the dead. The insult to the cross in the state newspaper was therefore very painful for the memory of Catholics.

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