NEW PACT MAY LEAD TO LINKS WITH EAST

CAUTIOUS hopes were expressed this week in both Rome and Belgrade that the new Vatican-Yugoslav agreement may well turn out to be the Vatican's first step in taking up relations with East European countries.
"Don't expect anything overnight." said a Vatican official. "The agreement with Yugoslavia took two years of negotiations, and Yugoslavia is the most independent of the Communist States. But the tendency certainly is in that direction."
The Belgrade Communist daily, Borba, saw the whole venture as a sign of a "more flexible, realistic and positive outlook in the Vatican". At the same time, the newspaper went on. the agreement showed that in Yugoslavia itself democracy was spreading in outlook and in practice.
MGR. CASAROLI'S ROLE
The agreement. called the "Belgrade protocol", brings a dramatic end to a 14-year diplomatic rupture between Yugoslavia and the Holy Sec. It began in 1952 when Pope Pius XII raised the then Archbishop Stepinac to the Cardinalate.
Because Cardinal Stepinac was imprisoned by Marshal Tito's government for alleged war crimes, the government formally broke with the Vatican.
The renewal of relations was finally signed in Belgrade last week by Mgr. Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican's chief negotiator, with Communist countries, and Mr. Milutin Moraco, president of the Yugoslav Commission for Religious Affairs.
On the government's side, the signed protocol recognises the Holy See's spiritual jurisdiction over the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia. It guarantees to the Yugoslav Bishops, now and in the future, scope to keep up contact with the Holy See on religious and Church matters generally.
It also confirms the rights of Churches to practise religion. This gives added weight to the already existing law in the country.
VIOLENCE CONDEMNED
On the Vatican's side, the agreement confirms that the priestly activity of the clergy must be confined to the sphere of the Church and religious matters. and that it would be illegal to use the priestly office "for ends which could be of a political nature".
The Holy See undertakes to examine any such cases that the government may bring forward. It also condemns -in conformity with Catholic moral principles" all acts of terrorism and criminal political violence.
There is also a mutual Vatican-Yugoslav affirmation that they will always be ready in the future to consult each other on any issues that are likely to affect the relations of the Catholic Church and the Yugoslav Government.
Both will now exchange envoys without actual diplomatic status, but the delegates will have "diplomatic treatment" including the right to have a secret dispatch case.
There are 53 other countries—plus the Order of the Knights of Malta—who have regular ambassadors to the Holy See. In addition Poland and Lithuania have embassies with very special status.
Both these countries appointed ambassadors to the Vatican before World War II, and the old ambassadors served on in the name of their government in exile, even after Poland went Communist and Lithuania was incorporated in the Soviet Union.
When Pope Pius XII, whom they had been accredited, died in 1958 all ambassadors had to present new credentials to the new Pope John. But Poland's and Lithuania's ambassadors had now no governments that could accredit them. Pope John saved the situation by downgrading the ambassadors to "charges d'affaires" status.
[Background to the Pact—page 51