(OSV News) Leaders of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate have deplored an information blackout surrounding the arrest of two of their priests in Belarus. "No one from the Catholic Church was represented at their court hearing, and no details or access were provided," said Father Pawel Gomulak, spokesman for the religious order's Polish
OSV News) A Catholic parish priest accused of offending state authorities in Belarus said he understood the hardships facing prisoners of conscience after just four days in jail. I wouldn t wish this on anyone not a single hour in such a place, said Father Andrej Kulik, rector of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish at Miory. Many of my colleagues have sat in prison for various concocted reasons in recent decades, not just here in Belarus, and it made no difference that I
After his last Mass in Grodno s Holy Redeemer Church on 27 December, Polish citizen Fr Jozef Geza left Belarus after 25 years service. Religious affairs official Aleksandr Rumak rejected his bishop’s request to extend the permission which foreign citizens need to conduct religious work. Rumak "won t comment" on his decision, his colleague Andrei Aryayev said. Last July, Rumak refused the latest request for permission for Fr Klemens Werth. A Russian citizen, he can therefore serve only in an administrative role in Vitebsk diocese.