The cartoon appeared in Minskaya Pravda The bishops’ conference of Belarus accused state media of stoking anti-Catholic feeling, after an official newspaper equated priests with Nazis in a front-page cartoon.
“This publication inflicts moral damage on Christians of all denominations – it deliberately, maliciously distorts the truth,” the conference said September 7.
“A caricature in which the cross turns into a swastika and (a) swastika is depicted in place of a cross not only insults priests, but above all desecrates the cross of Christ.”
The statement said the image had “deeply offended” Catholic religious feelings and incited public hostility toward the Church just before Belarus’ September 17 National Unity Day.
The statement was published in reaction to the cartoon in Minskaya Pravda, a daily belonging to the Belarusian capital’s regional government. It depicted four priests before a mock icon of Catholic clergy martyred at Rosica in 1943.
The cartoon showed a priest wearing a swastika in place of a pectoral cross, with Belarus’ banned red-white national flag under his arm, singing the anthem Magutny Bozha (O God Almighty), which was denounced in a July 3 speech by President Alexander Lukashenko shortly before a police raid on Minsk’s Catholic cathedral.
The cartoon small print said Magutny Bozha was a “hymn for collaborators,” adding that Catholic authorities had ignored warnings to stop allowing it in churches.
In a September 7 social media post, the bishops’ spokesman, Father Yuri Sanko, accused Minskaya Pravda’s editors of “spitting in the face of several million Catholics” by publishing the cartoon, adding that he and other priests would continue “praying for enemies of the Church.”
The same day, Auxiliary Bishop Yury Kasabutski of Minsk-Mohilev said on social media: “Such articles do not promote peace and harmony in our country. Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do!”
Meanwhile, the ecumenical Christian Vision organisation said the image clearly defamed the Church and urged the Vatican to respond.