Local Boy Makes Good

The red brick Church of Our Lady of the Rosary stands modestly on a busy street in Springfield, Mass. Through its massive doors on Sunday pass the parishioners, all Polish. To them there are few better men than the blond, 54-year-old pastor, U.S.-born Father Stanislaus Orlemanski.

Twenty-seven years earlier he had come to this new parish, and bit by bit had built up this church, until it was worth $250,000. Now, he thought, he could devote his time and energy to what worried him greatly: the fate of Poland. In this cause, in the past year, he had attacked the Polish Government in Exile, formed the pro-Soviet Kosciuszko League, toured the U.S. and Canada, making speeches -- and foes.

On April 16 Father Orlemanski told a church group: "I'm going on a long trip and will bring home a surprise." Last week Moscow sprang his surprise. He had flown to Russia.

A Tap on the Shoulder. Overnight, the priest became an international figure. He was feted, shown the sights, received by Soviet dignitaries. A special train was reserved to take him to the front, to visit the Kosciuszko Division of Red Army Poles.

At a Moscow theater, at 10 o'clock one night, Father Orlemanski was tapped on the shoulder, told to go to the Kremlin. There, for two hours, he was closeted with Premier Joseph Stalin, Foreign Commissar Viacheslav Molotov. Next Morning, the Communist Party's Pravda splashed a photograph across its front page: beaming Stalin, flanked by beaming Molotov, beaming Father Orlemanski (see cut). If Russia gasped that day, it had a good excuse: this was the first time Atheist Stalin had been photographed with a Catholic priest.

When U.S. newsmen trudged into Father Orlemanski's special "bridal suite" at the National Hotel, he joked, slapped backs, talked cautiously of his mission and his Kremlin interview: "Stalin wants a free, independent and democratic Poland." When he saw the photograph, he said: "This will make a rumpus in America, eh?" Patently hungry for all the publicity he could get, he impressed one correspondent as "a typical, tough Polish-American politician."

Apostle or Traitor? The press made a great mystery of Father Orlemanski's trip, wasted reams on speculation about how he got to Moscow and why he was there. He himself supplied one answer: he expected to hurry back to the U.S., explain Russia's side in the Polish controversy to violently anti-Russian U.S. Poles. From Moscow, New York Timesman Ralph Parker noted that the Russians would find a Catholic priest's help handy in placating Poland's intensely religious Catholics. In Washington, the State Department curtly explained the passport: it was issued at the request of a "friendly Government."

The Orlemanski visit fitted into a pattern. So did Molotov's placatory statement on Rumania (TIME, April 10), Moscow's temperate attitude toward stubborn Finland and the recognition of Marshal Badoglio's tainted regime (see col. 2). Now a Springfield, Mass, priest, supporting a cause in which he himself believed, was apparently being used to underline Moscow's new technique of friendship.

At home, Father Orlemanski would get all the rumpus he expected. A taste was supplied this week by Monsignor Michael J. Ready, general secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Said he of Father Orlemanski's mission: "A political burlesque, staged and directed by capable Soviet agents." In Detroit, a U.S. Polish leader sputtered angrily: "... A modern-day Benedict Arnold. . . ."

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