SIX MILLION CATHOLICS FACE ANTI-GOD TERROR

CARDINAL "'INSLEY ASSURHS POLES
Intercession Mass in London's Polish Church
RUSSIA'S INVASION OF EASTERN POLAND IS A CRUSHING BLOW TO THE CHURCH. TWO ARCHDIOCESES AND ONE DIOCESE ARE REPORTED TO BE COMPLETELY OVERRUN BY THE SOVIET ARMY AND THE CASE OF FIVE OTHER DIOCESES, WHICH ARE PARTLY IN GERMAN HANDS, IS ALMOST AS BAD.
Considerable anxiefy is felt for Mgr, Count Szeptycki, whose whereabouts are unknown. It is thought that he has been made a prisoner.
CARDINAL HINSLEY HAS ADDRESSED A LETTER TO THE RECTOR OF THE POLISH CHURCH IN LONDON WHICH IS IN EFFECT A MESSAGE FROM CATHOLIC ENGLAND TO CATHOLIC POLAND.
" In this cruel hour of Poland's martyrdom, I send you my heartfelt sympathy," His Eminence writes. " This is indeed a terrible blow. But Poland is dedicated to the Queen of Heaven who will ever protect your country.
" You know well that by her intercession Poland has triumphed again and again . . . The same spirit cannot fail to bring final success to a cause which is fundamentally just, since your people are defending their hearths and their altars."
Cardinal Hinsley and the Polish Ambassador, Count Raczynski, attended a special Mass of Intercession at the Polish Church last week.
Among the more extravagant pieces of German propaganda must be cited the story, given out on the wireless, that secret British agents were encouraging the Poles to fire the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa so that the Germans
might be accused of the crime.
The Prior of the Pauline CARDINAL'S Monastery at Czestochowa has been ordered by the German Military Authorities to certify that the monastery and sanctuary have suffered no damage.
MARTYRDOM FOR MILLIONS
From Our Central European Correspondent The Church has suffered a crushing blow in the loss to Russia of Eastern Poland.
The Soviet aggression means martyrdom for large numbers of Catholics, particularly the numerous priests and nuns in the Polish Ukraine.
It is certain the archdioceses of Vilna and Lwow, as well as the diocese of Pinsk, will henceforth be at the tender mercies of the OGPU, while parts of the diocese of Siedice, Luck, Przernysl, Lublin and Lomza are also likely to become Soviet territory.
Nearly three and three quarter minion Catholics of the Latin rite are to be found in the first three dioceses alone, together with. 1,537 priests.
Blow to Uniat Church
For the Uniat or Byzantine rite, to which roughly half Poland's Ukrainians belonged—the other half were Orthodox —the blow is particularly cruel.
At least two and a half million Catholics of this rite, together with close on two thousand priests, will be involved.
The Polish Ukraine was the only substantial Ukrainian district not under the Soviet terror, where the Church could form some sort of basis for the future conversion of Russia through the medium of the Byzantine rite.
Frequently Mgr. Count Szeptycki, the heroic Archbishop of Lwow, broadcast services of intercession for the suffering Ukrainians in Russia that were a source of immense consolation to Catholics in Soviet territory. Now the Polish Ukraine, too, has gone.
Fate of Ukrainian Bishop
The fate of Mgr. Szeptycki is causing great anxiety. The immensely popular Archbishop of Lemberg, although old and partly paralysed, has long been the recognised leader of his people in Poland and has never ceased to warn them of the Bolshevist terror, of which he had first-hand experience.
He cou/d,expect no mercy were he to fall into the hands of the OGPU, but there is hope that he was able to make good his escape into Rumania or Hungary.
Mgr. Szeptycki told me last year that not less than eighty per cent. of Catholics in the Polish Ukraine, whether of the Latin or Byzantine rites, were practising. Every kind of Catholic institution and society existed. Now all this has been swept away and the Catholics of what was until yesterday Eastern Poland rejoin the martyred Catholics of Russia.