Catholic World News News Feature

Slovakia: archbishop denies acting as Communist informer March 01, 2007

Archbishop Jan Sokol of Bratislava, Slovakia, has conceded that he did speak with the secret police of the Communist regime, but insists that he was never an informer.

“During my meetings with the secret police, I tried to defend the good of the Church and direct the attention of the secret police toward less important things,” the archbishop told reporters.

Early in February, documents were discovered in government archives in Prague, suggesting a relationship between Archbishop Sokol and the secret police of Czechoslovakia. (Slovakia and the Czech Republic split, forming separate nations, after the collapse of the Communist regime.) Archbishop Sokol was accused of providing information about the activities of Cardinal Jan Korec.

The archbishop, who had earlier issued a blanket denial of charges that he was a Communist informer, offered details of his contact with secret police to reporters in Bratislava, in a first public appearance after a hip operation.