ATTEMPTS
TO PUT
PRESSURE ON CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BELORUSSIA—REPRESENTATIVE OF
ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH
Interfax-Religiia,
1
September 2020
A
representative of
the Roman Catholic Church in Belorussia regards the refusal by
authorities to
permit the head of Belorussian Catholics, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz,
onto the
territory of the country to be an attempt to apply pressure.
"The
situation
is really abnormal. It is obvious that they are trying to apply
pressure on the
Catholic Church, and that means the church is being persecuted,
although nobody
is openly talking about that," the vicar general of the
Minsk-Mogilev
archdiocese, Yury Kosobutsky, said in an interview with the
official website of
the RCC in Belorussia.
In
particular, he
called attention to the fact that on Monday, Kondrusiewicz was
refused entry
into the country, "although that is illegal and violates his
rights as a
citizen of the republic of Belarus." At the same time, the vicar
general
stated that thus far no official explanations have been
forthcoming from
Belorussian authorities.
In
addition,
Kosobutsky continued, on 31 August there was a session of the
Inter-confessional Consultation Council, to which
representatives of the
Catholic Church were not invited, although it is the second
largest church in
Belorussia in number of believers.
"After
the
session, representatives of other confessions communicated with
us and shared
that we, Belorussian Catholics, were literally smeared with mud.
Perhaps
representatives of the Catholic Church were not invited because
we always have
to answer to baseless accusations," the vicar said.
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