Archbshop Named as Red Agent

[HagiaSophia]

A Roman Catholic archbishop was an agent for Slovakia’s communist-era secret service, a government official said today.

Jan Sokol, now the head of the Bratislava-Trnava archdiocese, was registered by the secret service as an agent in spring of 1989, just months before he was appointed archbishop in then-communist Czechoslovakia, said Miroslav Lehky of the Institute of the National Memory.

Prior to that, the service had marked Sokol as a ”candidate for cooperation” for many years, Lehky said.

Lehky said the files covering the western part of Slovakia and the capital, Bratislava – including the one on Sokol – will be released to the public within months. He said the list of the service’s cooperators “was trustworthy.”

He added only additional research would revel more details about the alleged cooperation.

Under communism, which ended in late 1989, Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia. The country split peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

Sokol, now 71, would not comment on the alleged cooperation with the service but will issue a written statement later this month, his secretary Tibor Hajdu said .

news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4114936

 

[HagiaSophia]

A Roman Catholic archbishop denied allegations Friday that he had cooperated with the communist-era secret service, indicating he would go to court to clear his name.

Jan Sokol, now the head of the Bratislava-Trnava archdiocese, was referring to a disclosure by a government agency that he had been registered by the secret service as an agent in 1989, just months before he was appointed archbishop in then-communist Czechoslovakia.

The Institute of the National Memory also alleged that prior to that, the service had marked Sokol as a “candidate for cooperation” for many years.

The government institute, which is making the secret service’s files public, said that anyone listed as an agent by the secret service in these files had to have given signed consent to cooperate.

But in his first public reaction addressing the alleged cooperation with the service, Sokol denied it.

“I’ve never signed cooperation. I never knew that they have a record, so what was said I never knew about, so it is not true,” the archbishop told the private television TA3.

Sokol said the service “has never given me any offer for cooperation,” adding he himself was the target of the service’s surveillance. He said he would clear his name in court.

When asked why he would be listed as agent if he did not cooperate, Sokol said “so they would have their job fulfilled.” He did not elaborate.

keralanext.com/news/indexread.asp?id=113308

 

[Grolsch]

Sokol’s office issued a statement Thursday, saying the archbishop was disturbed by the allegations that he was involved with the secret service.

“It is an attempt to damage the trust in the church, which during the years of the communist dominance managed to stand on the side of truth despite great sacrifices,” the statement said.

In alot of eastern block countries, embittered communists are still stinging from the blow the Catholic Church dealt them and are continually looking for retribution.

I’d be very surprised if the allegations were true since there was so much animosity between Catholics and communists due to the great emphasis the Church puts on being free from secular power. Every other denomination had pretty much come under their control.