Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception - Annual Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

Page 68 text:

OOCATHEDRAL COLLEGE the close connection which existed between the Russian government and the national religion is evident in the decree banishing the lesuits, whose offense lay in the perversion of ignorant and tender-minded youth from the light of the Orthodox faith and love for Holy Russia to the vicious tenets of Rome. lt was with joyous hearts then that Catholics welcomed the revolution which would bring, they thought, freedom of worship and relief from auto- cratic oppression. This, they soon discovered, was a vain hope and with the ascension of the Bolsheviks to power the Church was made the object of a persecution more savage and vicious than had ever been experienced under the Tsars. ln truly traditional style priests and faithful steeled themselves for the assault and stood their ground while around them they saw the others flee before the first evidence of a conflict. The campaign against the Catholic Church reached a dramatic climax in l923. Previously the Soviet onslaught from the Russian schismatic church had been successful in disrupting and disorganizing that body. Both by threats of reprisals and by the more subtle methods of deceit, flattery and bribery they had influenced a great number of the Orthodox clergy under the guise of a reform movement to renounce the traditional Church and establish a new body, The Living Church, which would accept the tenets of Communism and Soviet domination. Those who refused this offer were executed or imprisoned. Such a wholesale acquiescence in their scheme by the Russian priests encour- aged the Bolsheviks to redouble their efforts against the Catholic Church. But their attempts were doomed to failure. Despite threats and trickery they failed to daunt a single Catholic layman, let alone a Catholic priest. Revenge was soon forthcoming. In the spring of 1923 the attention of the world was focused upon a simple courtroom in Moscow where Archbishop Cieplak, the head of- the Catholic Church in Russia, and fourteen fellow members of the clergy were being tried by the Soviet Government for alleged counter-revolutionary activities. These activities consisted in a refusal to relinquish sacred vessels to the Soviet without the permission of the Pope required by canon law and a reluctance to comply with the Bolshevik law forbidding the religious instruction of children under eighteen years of age. The true nature of their crime was ably ex- pressed by Archbishop Cieplak: Our great endeavor has always been to preach, and to realize in our own lives, that divine truth which, now for nearly two thousand years, has been the light of the world, has been hailed as the truth by the greatest of human intellects, and has led humanity to attain its highest development. And the end of all our efforts is that we stand here in the dock, accused of plotting a counter-revolution. During those days that courtroom must have awakened for some the memory of another courtroom of many centuries ago where a charge of blas- phemy was hurled in the face of the Son of God. ln that tribunal was being enacted a drama far more tremendous than mere appearances could reveal, for there in the person of Archbishop Cieplak stood the Church Militant, silent, unconquerable, as she had stood for two thousand years before the ever- 62

Page 67 text:

A N N U A L l 9 3 6 0 0 breaking the fetters imposed upon them by an autocratic sovereign and a decadent nobility. For centuries they had been oppressed by privileged classesg their intellectual life had been stunted by monarchs who feared the loss of their power were the people to be educated to a knowledge of their rights. ln each instance the traditional Church had been discredited before the people by an unhealthy intimacy with the State. There, however, the analogy ceases. Whereas the Catholic Church in France, with the vigor of eternal truth and the grace of divine guidance, triumphed over every force both within and without which would destroy her, the Russian schismatic church, lacking the divine life of the true Church, never recovered from the blow. In truth, the Russian schismatic church has been subjected to a persecution the equal of which the world has never witnessed. Yet the very success of that attack must be attributed to the imperfections of that organization whose complete collapse left its people disillusioned, helpless, lost in a sea of doubt and uncertainty. It exists today in exile, a national church without a country, nurtured upon rapidly diminishing hopes and fond memories. ln its own land it lives in fact only in the hearts of its spiritually starved people. Though its Christianity was strong enough to inspire thousands to suffer torture and death for His sake, it itself could not endure the life of the Catacombs. The Roman Catholic Church in Russia embraces but a small minority of its inhabitants, yet the intensity of the campaign directed against it is out of all proportion to its size. The reason for this is obvious and, as far as the Sovet government is concerned, extremely logical. This Church by its very catholicity stands forth as the opponent to be reckoned with if the world revolution is to be successful. Finding Catholics not amenable to friendly overtures for cooper- ation as allies, the Communists have declared a particularly violent state of warfare to exist with this insolent tool of the Capitalistsf' It will be a struggle to the finish between the Communist lnternational and the Christian lnter- national, the Church Catholic. That the Soviet is conscious of the inevitable conflict and the mettle of its adversary is clearly revealed in these words taken from HBEZBOZI-lNIK, The Godlessf' official organ of Russian Atheism. The struggle with Catholic clericalism . . . is severer than the struggle with the Russian Church, because the Catholic organization is stronger than the Pravoslavny, and Catholic ideology is more adaptable to the conditions of general life. Although, in structure and in dogma, the Catholic Church is medieval, its flexibility and its strength enable it to deceive the masses, already enslaved by capitalism. ln direct opposition to the International of Moscow stands the International of Rome, which has its agents everywhere and its ad- herents in all lands. But against this single clerical front we must oppose a united front of the Atheists and Communists. The Catholic Church in Russia has always led a harried existence. Under the Empire its organization and members had been subject to constant discrim- ination and often to physical violence. This attitude resulting of course from Sl

Page 69 text:

A N N U A L l 9 3 6 0 0 changing figure of Antichrist. Across the Width of a table the International of Lenin, arrogant, drunken with power, confronted the lnternational of Christ, venerable with an ageless wisdom, and was disturbed by something it could not understand. ln the nascent career of Communism it was a new experience. Previously the Bolsheviks had crashed through every obstacle in their path. But the iron discipline and unfaltering loyalty of the officers in Cl'1rist's army were disquieting and incomprehensible. The Soviet luggernaut had collided with the Rock of Peter. The procedure and outcome of this judicial travesty proved beyond doubt that the Soviet government was determined to destroy all religion. With far- cical solemnity the priestly defendants were found guilty of the crime of teaching so-called religious knowledge to children. Archbishop Cieplak and Monsignor Budkiewicz were condemned to death while the others were con- signed to the living death of the abominable Soviet prisons. lrnmediately an outraged Christendom raised its voice in thunderous indignation. All denomi- nations united to protest against this common menace. ln order to avoid world censure, the Bolshevik leaders compromised with aroused public opinion to the extent of commuting Archbishop Cieplak's death sentence. But Monsignor Budkiewicz they would not save, and that heroic priest of God followed in the footsteps of his Master on Good Friday, 1923. May he not have died in vainl The unparalleled campaign being conducted in Russia today to deprive an entire people of its soul is terrifying not only in the barbarity but in the thoroughness of its methods. Their ingenuity and efficiency must arise from diabolically inspired minds. The talents, energies and resources of the whole nation have been regimented in the drive to stamp out the religious con- sciousness of the people. Every medium of persuasion and coercion, of propa- ganda and education has been drafted into the assault. The program is so comprehensive, all-embracing as to permeate even the innermost lives of every inhabitant of the Soviet state. It is twofold in char- acter: violent suppression of religion and a state-subsidized propagation of atheism. Every single day of his existence from the time of his infancy, the Russian is exposed constantly to anti-religious propaganda. He is deprived of every means of obtaining the knowledge and comfort of religion. lf he does not prove susceptible to these efforts he is either slain outright, sent to a living death in prison, or left to himself deprived of every means and opportunity to obtain the things necessary to keep himself alive. The process of despiritualization begins with the child. Soon after birth the infant is taken from his parents and cared for in state-controlled nurseries. Most parents readily conform with this practice because their own time and energies are for the greatest part expended in the compulsory labor imposed upon them by the Soviet regime. incidentally, it is such conditions that have succeeded in rendering the Russian family a thing of the past. From the first moment of his conscious existence the child's mind is nour- ished on the poison of atheism, and hatred and contempt for God and religion. The child is even taught the alphabet with the aid of atheistic slogans and anti-religious caricatures. l-le learns to regard the Soviet government, the evi- 63