Catholic numbers ‘under-counted’

The head of the Catholic Church in Belarus, widely considered Europe’s most repressive state, has accused the Government of President Alexander Lukashenko, of downgrading the number of active Catholics in the country, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“There were many times more at Christmas Day worship in the whole of Belarus than reported on the Interior Ministry website,” said Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz in a rare show of defiance. “We are concerned about the tendency to lower artificially the number of Catholics attending services. The Ministry counted 240,000 people at Christmas 2011, then 95,000 in 2012, 83,000 in 2013 and 58,000 in 2014. We hope it will provide truthful information about Catholics in future.”

In an open letter to the Interior Minister, Igor Shunevich, the archbishop said the latest government figure of 40,000 at Catholic Christmas services was “untrue” and was plainly contradicted by the Church’s own data. He added that 92,000 had attended Masses in Minsk, Grodno and Lida alone.