LIVERPOOL'S . ARCHBISHOP ON SOVIET ANTI-CHRISTIAN CAMPAIGN

From Our Staff Reporter
Pointing out that the attitude of Russia to the countries of EastCentral Europe is now causing anxiety 'even in quarters which hitherto have applauded well-nigh everything which bore the Soviet stamp, whilst the pronouncements on foreign policy of the Soviet press are giving rise to widespread alarm, Archbishop Downey, writing in the Catholic Record, says that apparently, at the instigation and in the interests of Russia, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are each to be broken up, whilst Rumania, Hungary and Poland are to be forced to make territorial concessions.
He quotes Mr. Eden as saying that it did not surprise him to hear that the Lublin radio was pouring out atrcams of contentious stuff. Their purpose was to maintain the position they already' held ; but that was not what we wanted, nor was it what the Yalta Conference decided upon.
"Obviously the Crimean Declaration is being interpreted by the Soviet Press in a sense which is directly opposed to what was clearly intended at Yalta," states Dr. Downey. " It cannot be contended that the Soviet press is independent of the Soviet Government, foe it is well known that the press censorship in Russia is severe and not Likely to pass views of which it does not approve.
" Here and now, however, we are more concerned with the attitude of that press to religion and, more particularly, to the Catholic Church, which is accused of being pro-Fascist. Recently members of the National Catholic •Labour Union in Quebec asked the Canadian Premier, Mr. MacKenzie King, to enter a protest with Marshal Stalin against the `malicious, fanatical arid ridiculous ' charges made by Soviet newspapers against the Vatican and His Holiness the Pope. They stress the fact that Catholics in Canada total 4,986,000 or 43.34 per cent. of the Dominion's population, and are entitled to be heard.
'' As recently as March 22 Red Star treated its readers to a cartoon representing the Vatican hand-in-hand with Hitler and Himmler against a background of skulls. But as a, sample of the kind of thing permissible even in high quarters in Soviet Russia we may cite the attack on the Vatican by the Russian Orthodox Church made in a statement issued by the Patriarchs at their meeting in Moscow to elect the new Patriarch Alexes of all the Russias.
It would seem that the newly-freed Orthodox Church of Russia is being called upon to pay a high price for its belated resurrection, and it may be recalled that not so long ago in the days of its persecution by the State the Holy Father publicly expressed his sympathy with it in its sufferings.
" In spite of all protests the abuse Of the Catholic Church goes on unchecked in the columns of Pravda, Red Star and other Moscow journals, to say nothing a the new organ of world revolution, War and the Working Class. To-day this attack is directed superficially against the Catholic Church as a powerful world-wide religious organisation, but fundamentally it is aimed at Christianity and religion in general, for the simple reason that religion of any kind is incompatible with that dialectical materialism upon which Communism is based, and which regards religion as merely the opium of the masses.'
" It must be borne in mind that the Soviet State, according to its Constitution, excludes all consideration of religion. of the Deity and of the moral law. But in practice it has shown itself to be fanatically anti-religious.
" The monumental Soviet Encyclopaedia informs its readers that Jesus Christ never existed but is simply the product of a religious ideology which grew up in the Roman Empire, and that the Church came into being with class-consciousness and class-warfare of which it became a prime promoter. Christianity is not likely to receive much encouragement where such views officially obtain."