Strong Vatican Feeling About Fate of Poland

CONTACTS WITH MOSCOW DENIED
Both the Vatican and Moscow have formally denied that there is any truth in recent rumours suggesting that understandings between the Holy See and the Soviet Union were being studied.
"lass," the official Soviet Agency, states that it has authority to deny all reports of any contact with the Vatican on the question of entering into communication about social and religious problems after the war.
The Vatican Press Service has been equally explicit, while the Osservatore Romano has reiterated the denial.
Correspondents in Rome are linking up these denials with obvious evidence of feeling in the Vatican with regard to the fate of Poland.
The fate of Poland and the fighting in Warsaw have led to unusually frank articles in Osservatore Romano.
In a first article, written during the Polish Prime Minister's visit to Moscow, the Osservatore Romano stated : '"the journey of the Prime Minister Mikolajezyk to Moscow is peculiar, because it is an official journey of a Prime Minister of a country with whom there are no diplomatic relations, in order to discuss problems which have been already unilaterally decided against the manifested will and aspirations of the whole nation.
PROOF OF GOODWILL
"It appears that Mikolajczyk has expressed the wish to covet the leaders of the so-called Committee of National Liberation—which is with the founders of a movement contrary to the official aims of the Polish Government and for this reason considered as illegal. It all proves once again the goodwill which. in spite of formal difficulties, neithe'r overestimates nor humiliates but goes its own way overcoming all the formal diffi citifies which could block the way in the diplomatic sphere.
" For this reason one has to wish that the mission undertaken by the Polish Prime Minister in Moscow could give a result suitable for the future of Poland, of this Poland about whom the Holy Father said recently, that she has too often during the past centuries been the field and the object of international struggles and that anybody who has still got even a tiny spark of truly human and Christian feelings will aim at securing for Poland the position she fully deserved according to the rules of justice and true peace."
Later, the failure to give help to the fighters in Warsaw led to the following comments in the Vatican paper faccolding to Renter's version); WARSAW—THE EXCEPTION " The Russian advance is meeting no obstacles. Each time a new offensive is announced the number of kilometres advanced grows daily bigger. When the news indicates that there is a battle near some town it is invariably followed by the entry into its suburbs and its occupation within a few hours.
" It is only at Warsaw that this does not happen. But this is not the only outstanding point of this battle. In Warsaw, Poles of the Resistance Movement have fought and are fighting. It is obviously necessary to ask whether there is any connection between these two facts.
" Is this a division of the war effort? If this were the case why then did the men of the Resistance Front in a proclamation of August 6 say, ' We ask help from those who owe us help '? And this help is not forthcoming. for the Poles the day before yesterday announced, Pressure is increasing.'
" If that were so. why for the past few days have Russian bulletins ignored the phase of the fight in Warsaw when
the news from London speaks of it as of any other sector? Why until now has Warsaw been mentioned only as a point of reference to indicate the position of the Soviet troops to the northwest, south-east or in other directions, and not as a direct objective?
" At the present stage, alas, one can only ask questions."
UNPROPITIOUS FOR TALKS Linking up the denials of any relations with Moscow with the misgivings about Poland, Reuter's correspondent comments:
The present would actually be a very unpropitious moment for any possible talks between the Soviet Government and the Vatican. The deep ties between the Catholic Church and Roland, and Pope Pius XII's deep interest in the fate of Polish Catholics at themoment, heavily cloud the Vatican outlook.
To comment on the position at Warsaw which appeared in last Friday's issue of the Osservatore Romano left little doubt as to how strongly the Vatican feels in this connection.
In Italy, the popularity of the present Pope, heightened by the great praise he has received for his part in ensuring that Rome should he spared the horrors of war. keeps the clerical issue virtually out of politics. This has made it possible for Catholics and Communists to meet in a common trades union council, but it does not necessarily indicate any fundamental change towards Communism.
Indeed the Italian Catholic Communist Party has been specifically condemned by the Church. A rival party was started in 1941 to attract youthful Catholic Left-wingers, known as the Social Christian Party. Its leader, Gerardo Bruno. is an employee of the Vatican Library. It supports advanced but non-Communist social doctrines. A few days ago it plastered the walls of Rome with an appeal for new members.