Diplomat

To controversial Yugoslavia the Vatican last week decided to send one of the Catholic Church's most controversial bishops, Joseph Patrick Hurley* of St. Augustine, Fla.

Relations between the Vatican and Belgrade have been shaky since Marshal Tito rose to power. A recent letter to Pope Pius XII from the Yugoslav Episcopate made them even worse. The letter accused the Tito Government of closing Catholic schools, suppressing all Catholic newspapers and substituting civil marriages for religious ceremonies. Since the war's end. the letter added, 243 Yugoslav priests had been killed, 169 imprisoned.

By appointing Bishop Hurley to its top diplomatic post in Belgrade, the Vatican took an unusual step. Except for Archbishop Paschal Robinson in Eire. Bishop Hurley will be the only papal nuncio who is not Italian.

The Church assured itself of an honest, fearless representative in a country brimming with touchy problems. Before Pearl Harbor, Bishop Hurley was the most outspoken interventionist in the U.S. hierarchy. As early as the spring of 1941. he made enemies among fellow Catholics by labeling the Nazis the chief enemies of the U.S. and the Church, and attacking those who feared Communists more. Early in 1943, when the Army was faced with a shortage of Catholic chaplains, Hurley accused some of his fellow U.S. bishops of an "inability to face the facts."

Long accustomed to fact-facing, Bishop Hurley was not likely to change his ways in Belgrade.

*Not to be confused wth Patrick Jay Hurley (no kin), U.S. Ambassador to China.

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