Pope Meets Communist

For the first time in history, a Pope of the Roman Catholic Church last week received a ranking Soviet leader. The Pope was John XXIII, an intuitive man more concerned with the fate of Catholics back of the Iron Curtain than with scoring political points. The Communist was Izvestia's Editor Aleksei Adzhubei, who can carry a message directly and informally to Khrushchev because he is married to Khrushchev's daughter.

The warming relationship between Rome and Moscow has lately been a sort of Father Alphonse-Comrade Gaston act. Last September the Vatican invited Russian Orthodox observers to the Ecumenical Council. Last month the Soviet Union released Ukrainian Archbishop Josyf Slipyi from his long years in prison. And last week Editor Adzhubei, clearly working under orders from on high, showed up in Rome for what was billed as a "lecture tour."

Working Atheist. The Soviet embassy informed Msgr. Jan Willebrands of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (who had escorted Slipyi out of Russia) that Adzhubei would like a private audience with the Pope. The Vatican, wary of what the Communists would do with that in Italy's general election next month, refused, and suggested a general audience with other Vatican visitors. Adzhubei rejected that proposal, but the Vatican's subtle chief of protocol, Msgr. Igino Cardinale, figured out a deft compromise. Since officials of the Balzan Foundation* were scheduled to visit the Pope with the formal announcement that he had won their 1963 Peace Prize, why should not Adzhubei cover the event as a working journalist? Afterward, it was hinted, a private--but quite unofficial--meeting with the Pope might be arranged.

Dressed in dark suit and grey tie, and accompanied by his wife Rada in black veil and grey suit, Adzhubei showed up with other reporters in the Vatican's gilded throne room, listened as the Pope spoke of the church's positive neutrality in the cold war, bowed his head when John gave his blessing. "A beautiful speech," said Adzhubei, who throughout his visit to Rome proudly labeled himself a "confirmed atheist."

"Man Proposes . . ." After other newsmen left, Adzhubei and Rada were ushered into the papal library, there spent 18 minutes alone with John and his interpreter. Adzhubei told the Pope that he was known and admired in Russia as a fighter for peace. John answered that he was only doing God's will. The Pope recalled his own journeys through the Balkans as a Vatican diplomat. Adzhubei apparently gave the Pope a personal message from Khrushchev, who had instructed the Russian members of the Balzan Foundation to vote the Peace Prize to John, and had sent word that he was delighted after the award was announced.

Eager to improve the lot of Iron Curtain Catholics, the Vatican would like to regularize these portents of good will--and may well establish formal diplomatic relations with Moscow some day. Last week, L'Osservatore Romano front-paged a theoretical article, written by Msgr. Cardinale, on the general necessity of consular relationships between sovereign states. Asked at a Rome press conference about exchanging consuls with the Vatican, Adzhubei certified that it was "a good idea." Another reporter wondered if Father-in-Law Nikita, who may visit Rome later in the year, would also call on the Pope. Atheist Adzhubei, who earlier had noted that "the Pope does not bite,'' shrugged, and quoted in answer the 15th century Christian mystic Thomas a Kempis: "Man proposes, but God disposes."

* A younger, award-giving replica of the Nobel Foundation, which derives its income from the estate of the late Italian press lord, Eugenio Balzan.

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