Rumanians

seek pact
with Rome
RUMANIA'S Communist government is willing to open negotiations with the Vatican to improve ChurchState relations, according to a report from Vienna.
Kathpress, the Austrian Catholic news agency, quoted reliable sources as stating that a Rumanian Catholic dignitary had recently gone to Rome to convey the Bucharest government's readiness to open talks,
He was understood, however, to have told the Holy See that the Rumanian government insisted that the Vatican should take the initiative.
A concordat was signed between the Vatican and Rumania in 1927 and has never been officially revoked, but there has been no Papal Nuncio in Bucharest since 1946. when Archbishop Andreas Cassulo was forced to withdraw because of ill health. in January, 1947, the late Bishop Gerald P. O'Hara, later Apostolic delegate in Britain, was named as regent of the nunciature, but he was expelled by the Communist government in 1950.
He was accused, along with two aides, of supplying the British and U.S. legations and the Turkish Embassy with vital military, political and economic information. The bishop branded the charges as "lies from first to last".
One Bishop
There are about 1,200,000 Roman Catholics in Rumania. Before the war there also were 1,500,000 Byzantine Rite Catholics, but they were forced by government decree in 1948 to become part of the Rumanian Orthodox Church.
At present only . one of the country's four Catholic dioceses— Alba Julia—has a bishop in residence. He is Bishop Aaron Marton, but he is not permitted to leave his See and can receive visitors only after they are carefully screened.
Last year, Bishop Marton was named by Pope Paul as an Assistant to the Papal Throne, but he has not been allowed to leave the country, even to attend the Second Vatican Council.
It is estimated that more than 50 Catholic priests have been executed in Rumania since 1948, and 200 have died in prison.
According to Kathpress, several priests were released from prison last year but not permitted to resume their pastoral duties. Many towns and villages, it said, are without priests and last year only 30 new priests were ordained.
Religious instruction, the agency added, is allowed only on Saturdays or Sundays, and can be given only inside churches.
Death of Rome's Vicar-General
Cardinal Kicara, one of the most prominent members of the Roman Curia and the Pope's Vicar General for the City of Rome, died last week aged 85
His death reduced the membership of the Sacred College to 102. Pope Paul had raised it to a record 103 at his first consistorv on February 27.
The Cardinal was Bishop of the Alban Hills town of Velletri. chancellor of the Pontifical Lateran University and a member of nine • congregations of the Curia.