“An attempt to discredit my person and the Catholic Church in Slovakia”: that how Bishop Jan Sokol of Bratislava-Trnava has reacted to the accusation of having collaborated with the Czechoslovak Communist regime, made in recent days by the Institute of National Memory in Slovakia, the state organization that analyses the crimes of Communism. According to the Institute’s spokesman, Michal Dzurjanin, Bishop Sokol was an agent of the Communist secret police during the regime. His name is allegedly contained in a list of collaborators, the publication of which has been announced for the end of next month. The accusation, said Msgr. Sokol, is “a grave moral injury not only to me personally but also to the Catholic Church. I reject any conscious collaboration with the atheist regime”. According to the spokesman of the Slovak bishops, Marian Gavenda, “it is an attempt to conceal those who were really responsible and who persecuted thousands of innocent citizens. The reports on the collaboration of some churchmen are being shown to be unfounded”.
