Tito Will Not Release Mgr.

Stepinac
VATICAN CITY.
Marshal Tito has declared that Mgr. Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb and Primate of Yugoslavia, will not be released from prison since such a move would be "against the policy of the Yugoslav Government."
The statement was made to Mr. Ira Hirschmann, former Inspector-General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Organisation, when he visited Marshal Tito in Belgrade last week. The statement has been commented on by the Vatican daily Osservatore Romano.
terest to 25,000,000 U.S. Catholics must have been mentioned.
Marshal Tito, as intransigent towards the West as towards the East, is reported as saying that the Archbishop was imprisoned "to protect the widows and orphans or those who were killed fighting for the independence of Yugoslavia."
The Yugoslav Government would not discriminate against any religion, said Marshal Tito, but Mgr. Stepinac had harmed the State and his imprisonment was a question of his personal activities during the war.
NO CHANGE
"This report," commented Osservatore Romano, "shows that rumours that Yugoslavia is changing its attitude towards the Church arid towards the iniquitous detention of Mgr. Stepinac are foundationless. " The fact that the Yugoslav Government says it is against discrimination means that Mgr. Stepinac is considered as a member of the political current against which the war of liberation was carried out.
" Instead, he always and exclusively represented the Church and carried out its mission of justice, charity and pacification above all political and partisan conflicts."
Commenting on Marshal Tito's reference to widows and orphans, the Vatican paper continued:
" This is denied by the fact that Mgr. Steninac continued his mission during the war of liberation and even after it without widows and orphans being menaced. Nor did they call for protection. " All this continued well until the Communist dictatorship said that it was threatened and needed protection aeainst the liberty and rights of the Catholic Church. And there is no doubt that the Communist dictatorship is neither a widow nor an orphan."