Rendering unto Prague

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Rendering unto Prague

Busy, efficient, persuasive Foreign Minister Dr. Eduard Benes rounded out momentously, last week, the political autonomy of Czechoslovakia into complete national religious autonomy. A lingering religious fly in the honey of Czechoslovak nationalism has been constituted by the fact that certain ancient dioceses held by German and Hungarian prelates with authority from the Pope have naturally overlapped the new and sovereign frontier of Czechoslovakia. Gross and irksome has been the overlapping of the Hungarian diocese of Estergom, the German diocese of Breslau. Last week these points of friction and many another were neatly sanded down by the announcement that a modus vivendi had been signed between those two suave soothers of states and souls, Dr. Benes and the Papal Secretary of State, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri.

Terms of the modus vivendi: 1) Roman Catholic diocesan boundaries to be revised where not in conformity with the Czechoslovak frontier; 2) Roman Catholic heads of religious houses, provincial superiors, army chaplains, Bishops and Archbishops in Czechoslovakia to be created exclusively from among Czechoslovaks who must be acceptable to its Government and must take the oath of allegiance to the Republic;* 3) The Roman Catholic Nuncio at Prague to be hereafter excused when the Diplomatic Corps and the Government of Czechoslovakia participate each year in the great national festival honoring the late, famed, fiery Protestant John Huss, national hero of Czechoslovaks,--and thorn in the Papal side.

Bravest of martyrs, John Huss (c. 1373-1415) was the foremost intermediary in passing on from English Wycliffe to German Luther the torch which eventually kindled the Reformation. As such, he himself became physically a torch, burned at the stake for heresy with ecstatic words upon his lips: "In the truth of that gospel which ... I have written, taught and preached, I now joyfully die!" Such a spirit, rekindled in Czechoslovakia, stands to them for all that has cloven their new, secular republic away from the Holy and Apostolic and Most Catholic oppressions of the fallen House of Habsburg. No wonder then, that two years ago Pope Pius XI wrathfully recalled Papal Nuncio Mgr. Francesco Marmaggi from Prague, lest he be obliged to participate in honoring a dead man whose spirit lives as an active enemy of the Holy See. From that overt act of recall sprang the negotiations so happily concluded last week.

*During the pourparlers Dr. Benes advanced for bargaining purposes an extremely wily contention. He held that the ancient right of the Anointed Habsburgs to make Roman Catholic appointments in their realm had descended "naturally" to the present Republican State.

While Cardinal Gasparri held out for and secured to the Papacy the technical right of appointment, Dr. Benes was able to cover this trump with the proviso that Papal appointments in Czechoslovakia shall be made only with the consent of the State.