First Church treaty with Communists

CZECH PLEDGES
From a Special Correspondent
THE Holy See and the Communist government of Czechoslovakia have reached the main lines of an agreement on Church-State affairs, according to well-informed Vatican sources I talked to early this week. It is expected that full details will be formally announced early next month.
The terms are said to provide for Archbishop Beran to go to Rome, and it is thought likely that he would be made a Cardinal in Pope Paul's first consistory, due to be held soon.
The sources said that the agreement was based on the following five points :—
1. That Archbishop Reran be :ailed to Rome in the first days af March.
2. That he should remain Archbishop of Prague, hut that the Holy See should entrust the running of the diocese to an Apostolic Administrator.
3. That the Czech government will concede liberty to Bishops in exercising their jurisdiction in their respective dioceses.
4. That the Holy See can nominate new Bishops.
5. That the Holy See will not insist on the return to their Sees of Bishops who were previously imprisoned or confined.
Archbishop Beran is 75. Last October, the Communists released him after 14 years of imprisonment and confinement. He is now living as a private citizen in a small town 15 miles outside Prague.
Rallying point
If the agreement is finalised, it will be the first concrete achievement of Pope Paul's reign in the field of relations between the Iron Curtain powers and the Church of Silence. apart rfom the release of individuals.
When Mgr. Beran was released, four other bishops were given their liberty as well. They were the last of the Church's major prelates to be confined in Czech prisons.
Many of the Czech clergy were arrested by the Communists after the 1948 coup on charges of antistate activities, but were released upon signing an oath of allegiance to the Communist government.
Archbishop Beran was one of those who did not sign, and he served as a rallying figure for resistance to the new legislation concerning the churches. Of ten resident bishops in Czechoslovakia, all went to prison and at least one died there.