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

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

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 70 text:

OOCATHEDRAL COLLEGE dent protector of his well-being, with greater loyalty and affection than his parents. Instances are well known in which children have betrayed their parents to the state for alleged violations of Soviet regulations and were highly extolled for their infidelity. No longer in the Russian home do we come upon the classic Christian scene of the infant in his mother's arms, learning the beau- tiful story of Bethlehem and the Child Iesus and lisping his first halting phrases in adoration and love of his Creator, lnstead we find the unfortunate Russian child deprived of the knowledge of love of God and the care of affectionate parents which are his birthright, and being inspired rather with an idolatrous awe of the unprepossessing figures of the proletarian saints, Lenin, Stalin and Marx. The Soviet leaders are not content merely to debase the child's mind with this unnatural ignorance of his true status in the Divine Plan during the early and all-important formative years of his life. He must be trained and pre- pared for his role as a future disciple of Godless Communism in the satanic program of world revolution. The ideal is expressed by Madame Krupskaya, Lenin's widow, thus, We must make our school boys and girls not merely non-religious, but actively and passionately anti-religious. He is enlisted in the Young Pioneers, an organizations of the Soviet youth who participate most vigorously in the campaign to throttle the Russian soul, especially of the little children. They are particularly energetic in their efforts to obliterate the celebration of Christmas with its joyous religious significance. As the youth reaches manhood he is exposed to forms of anti-religious propaganda more suitable to his maturity. ln work and in play, no oppor- tunity is overlooked which might be utilized for its devilish purpose. Elaborate measures include the introduction of a new calendar and the five-day week with the elimination of Sunday, its religious associations and opportunities for spiritual exercises. ln industry professed atheism is a certain guarantee of preferment and the worker is constantly coerced to embrace this course. ln his hours of leisure he is still more subject to highly supervised anti-re- ligious influences. Literature, the arts and sciences, stage, screen and radio, lectures, posters, workers' clubs, even churches which have been transformed into anti-religious museums-all are employed in the attempt to impress him Hwith the futility of faith and the rascality of religion. lf he remains unimpressed by this constant assault on his faith and per- sists in seeking the spiritual solace which only religion can afford, he finds himself confronted with obstacles which render his efforts all but vain. Prior to l929 the Soviet Constitution at least provided equal opportunity for re- ligious propaganda of all cults and anti-religious propaganda and made some vague mention of freedom of conscience. But in that year even that last remnant of official favor disappeared. A series of new decrees were promulgated that included not even a hint of toleration, except for anti-re- ligious activities which were granted free range and governmental benedic- tion. About the exercise of religious worship was erected a network of ordi- nances whose purpose was to suppress the external practice of religion in order to do away ultimately with the actual existence of religion. Thus the 64