RENEWED CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00810A004600480005-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2008
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: August 30, 1954
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2008/10/28: CIA-RDP80-0081 OA004600480005-7
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION REPORT
This material contains information affecting the Na-
tional Defense of the United States within the mean-
ing of the Espionage laws. Title 18, U.S.O. Secs. 793
and 794, the transmission or revelation of which in
any manner to an unauthorized person Is prohibited
by law.
SECTtt.ET/CONTROL - U.S. 0,,'FICIAL:s ONLY
REPORT
DATE DISTR. 30 Au .gust 1954 25X1
NO. OF PAGES 2
REQUIREMENT; NO. RD
REFERENCES
This is UNEVALUATED
Information
THE SOURCE EVALUATIONS IN THIS REPORT ARE DEFINITIVE.
THE APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE,
(FOR KEY SEE REVERSE)
1. The regime is now preparing new moves in its campaign against the Church
and this is taking the form of an attack against ecclesiastical seminaries.
2.. The Episcopate and its chairman, Bishop Klepacz, have received an official
note from the government which, while alluding to the traditional attitude
of the seminaries and graduates from ecclesiastical. colleges towards society,
politics, and national affairs, ei,oclaros that the seminaries are living in
complete isolation from the "social realities and everyday life of the People's
Republic". '.This is ascribed to the fact that neither the daily press nor
education in citizenship was reaching them, and while tiluy are not being
accused of hostility to the rd'gime, ,- .'t _i:6 said'T thby' have been a lawedi to
remain indifferent to the State and to social considerations. The note,
which has not yet been published in the Polish press, holds Bishop Klepacz
personally responsible for this state of affairs, and demands that the
seminaries be opened to the daily press and to social and political education
with the least possible delay. It also demands the participation of ecclesi-
astical college graduates in the youth organizations.
3.
SECRET/CONTROL - U.S. OFFICIALS ONLY
Renewed Campaign against the
Catholic Church
AIR x Fns _i AEC
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 Approved For Release 2008/10/28: CIA-RDP80-0081 OA004600480005-7
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4. The regime appears to be trying to achieve three points:
.a. To lay its hands on ecclesiastical youth and, by this means, to prepare
the ground for the organization of cadres of future clergy who would be
ready to accept a national Church;
b. To produce an atmosphere of tension between Bishop Klepacz and his Episco-
pate and, in this way, to create some form of splinter group;
c. To attain the liquidation of Bishop Klepacz who, as a "workers' bishop", is
a thorn in the flesh of the regime.
5. The regime has already succeeded in removing Bishop Klepacz from the industrial
cen6er of L6dz, where he was very popular among the workers, through his
nomination to the Chairmanship of the Episcopate, and now hopes to carry out
his complete liquidation through the conflict on the seminaries issue. It
bases its hopes in this connection on the fact that in this case the bishops
themselves will provide the necessary trump cards b refusin to d
Bishop Klepacz. the
regime will thus liquidate one of its important adversaries, a man who was
enormously popular in the workers' world which is claimed by the regime as
its exclusive domain. At the same time, Bishop Klepacz's successor would
be forced to make concessions in the same way as was done by the frightened
Episcopate after the arrest of the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski.
SECRET/CONTROL - U.S. OFFICIALS ONLY
Approved For Release 2008/10/28: CIA-RDP80-0081 OA004600480005-7