George Matulaitis Journal

December 16 I invited the Bishop of Kaunas, the Bishop of Riga and Monsignor Michalkiewicz to come and see me. We discussed some current problems. 1) How should the clergy behave, faced with the fact that the Bolsheviks were drawing near: a) They should avoid politics in their ser- mons, speaking only of the teaching of Christ, but taking care to bring out those points which are attacked. b) They should put their funds and bank deposits in order because searches would be conducted. c) When asked to produce documents, the priests in Russia would hand over copies. d) In Russia the priests would have private contact with the Bolsheviks if that were necessary, but no official relations were maintained. 2) Both the Lithuanian Council and the Polish representative, Dr. Józef Ziemacki, approached me separately with requests for a Department of Theology. Both the Lithuanians and the Poles have each decided to found a university. Naturally, we do not need two Departments of Theology. The simplest way of clearing up the dispute is to have Latin as the language of instruction. The assembled diocesan administrators were of the opinion that we should take up this issue and found a Department of Theology. To do this, we have to contact the nuncio and discuss the subject with both the Lithuanian Council and the Polish representatives. Taking into consideration the present state of unrest in the city of Vilnius and the possibility of upheavals, I decided to set aside the question of the Theology Department for the time being. 3) We talked about reclaiming churches confiscated by the Russian government and about repossession of Church property in general. 4) We decided to send the people a joint pastoral letter, and I was delegated to draft it. I doubt whether this can be done in the present state of confusion. 5) We also agreed that our respective chanceries would send each other copies of any letters, directives, or other published material so that we could coordinate our work. 6) It is necessary to standardize the parish record books. Here in 161