Church in the World

Sokol endorses fascist dictator

Slovak Republic

One of Slovakia's most prominent Catholic churchmen, Archbishop Jan Sokol of Trnva, has declared his sympathy for Josef Tiso, the Catholic priest and fascist leader of Slovakia from 1939 to 1945, by celebrating a memorial Mass for the 61st anniversary of his execution, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt. Thousands of Jews were deported to German concentration camps under the Nazi-controlled Tiso regime, for which Tiso was sentenced to death after the war.

The spokesman of the Slovak bishops' conference, Jozef Kovacik, said that the Mass had been a private initiative on the part of Archbishop Sokol and the bishops' conference had not been informed.

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