In Freedom's Name

In the bridal suite of Moscow's National Hotel last week, burly, beaming Father Stanislaus Orlemanski put his extra rabats into his suitcase, made ready to return to the U.S. and his Polish-American parishioners at Springfield, Mass.* But first, as a volunteer Polish-Catholic emissary to the U.S.S.R., he had several things to do. Back to the Kremlin he went for a second two-hour talk with Joseph Stalin and Foreign Commissar Viacheslav M. Molotov. They were, he said, "two great men." The talks, he said, produced "results beyond my expectations."

Free Poles? Father Orlemanski went to a Moscow radio studio. In Polish, he addressed the Poles in Poland: "Dear people of my fatherland. . . . We are Slavs, and allied Poland and Russia will be the largest force in the east. This union will bring great good both to Poland and Russia and will secure peace for ourselves for hundreds of years. . . . Long live a strong, free, independent, democratic Poland."

Free Worship? Still another chore remained for the busy, bespectacled priest.

He wrote a statement for the press, addressed to his fellow Roman Catholics in Poland and elsewhere. Said he: "Unquestionably Marshal Stalin is a friend of the Polish people. I will also make this historic statement: that future events will prove that he is very friendly disposed toward the Roman Catholic Church."

Before he left Moscow, Father Orle-manski convinced U.S. newsmen that he possessed evidence of willingness among top Soviet officials to carry out the constitutional promise of full religious freedom. (For news of religion in Russia, see p. 42.) His evidence would have to be something special to quell the furor which his Russian visit had created in the U.S.

Free For All. For two and a half hours last week, business in the House of Representatives stood still while Polish-American members denounced Russia on the 154th anniversary of the first Polish Constitution. Father Orlemanski drew a share of the abuse. Said Representative John Lesinski of Dearborn, Mich.: "Remembering Judas Iscariot ... I can't help wondering what price the priest is asking to betray the land of his forefathers, his Church and the loyal Americans of Polish descent."

Many of the 6,000,000 Polish-Americans in the U.S., concentrated principally in Illinois, Connecticut, New York, Michigan, pondered the same question. A rough welcome home awaited Father Orlemanski.

* Bursting with local pride, the Springfield Daily News produced the eight-column headline-of-the-week: "LOCAL PRIEST WINS POLISH FREEDOM."

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