Page 1, 17th June 1988

17th June 1988

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Page 1, 17th June 1988 — Vatican discusses links with Kremlin
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Vatican discusses links with Kremlin

by Martin Newland FOR the first time since the 1917 Russian Revolution, a top ranking Vatican official has met with a Soviet leader in the Kremlin — and emerged with a promise of more formal links between the two states in the future.
Although both sides denied that the restoration of diplomatic ties are in the offing, a Vatican spokesman has confirmed that the parties concerned are seeking ways of making dialogue more "concrete".
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, leader of the diplomatic section of the delegation sent to Russia to join the celebrations of 1,000 years of Russian Christianity, handed over a letter from the Pope addressed to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev outlining areas of difficulty which impede reconciliation between the Vatican and the Soviet Union.
Chief among these difficulties is the treatment by Soviet authorities of the Ukrainian Catholic Church which was forcibly amalgamated with the Russian Orthodox Church in 1946, but which preserves its own rites and links with Rome as an underground community.
For his part Mr Gorbachev told the cardinal that outside interference in church affairs was -unacceptable", but that
the Kremlin would "attentively consider" the points made in the Pope's letter, especially where it recommends "giving a regular character to contacts between our two states".
Cardinal Casaroli commented on how Mr Gorbachev and the Pope agreed on one thing: that the state should serve man and not vice versa. Both the Pope and Mr Gorbachev believed in "the centrality of man", he said.
Elsewhere Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, another member of the "trouble shooting" section of the official Vatican team in Moscow, has been holding secret talks with Ukrainian Catholic leaders. Observers say that the Vatican is keen to convince Uniate representatives that they are not being overlooked in favour of easy relations with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, the Rome-based leader of Ukrainian Catholics worldwide, last month remarked how members of his flock regard Vatican delegations to the Moscow celebrations as a "betrayal". Next month, however, the Vatican is to hold talks with the Russian Orthodox Church in Finland concerning the restoration of property and jurisdiction to the Uniate church should it be legalised.
Press speculation that the meeting between Mr Gorbachev and Cardinal Casaroli paves the way to a visit to Russia by the Pope in the near future was quickly scotched by Mr Gorbachev, however, who said that "many things have to happen" before this is possible.
In public statements before celebrations of the millennium began the Pope insisted that any visit to the Soviet Union must entail a visit to the large, Catholic Lithuanian community which answers to the Polish hierarchy. A Soviet official is quoted as saying that the state "could not afford the nationalist passions" such a visit would give rise to.




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