Report

No less than 118 Roman Catholic prelates are either imprisoned or deprived in some other way from carrying out their duties in Communist countries. Along with their names and dioceses, the Vatican last week released what information it had about their fate. It was very little.

Fifty-six of the bishops and monsignori are in Eastern Europe. In Russia, Rumania, Albania and the Baltic countries (now part of the Soviet Union), the hierarchy has been virtually wiped out. In the other Iron Curtain countries, it has been badly crippled. Russian Bishop Boleslav Sloskans, imprisoned since 1927, is either dead or in Siberia. The Lithuanian bishop of Kaisedorys and the Estonian apostolic administrator have been sent to Siberia. One Hungarian bishop, the Vatican announced, "has probably died" in a concentration camp. In Yugoslavia, Titoist but still Communist, one bishop is in jail, two (including Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac) are under house arrest.

The remaining 59 prelates are in Communist China. Twenty-one bishops, mostly native Chinese, are known to be in prison there. None of the others is able to perform his duties. No one, at the Vatican or anywhere else outside China, has even a good idea where they are.

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