George Matulaitis Journal

through his parish. Only a few villages were left intact; the others were destroyed. The people are living in shelters dug in the ground, and many are dying of starvation and typhoid. I told him that the parish council should petition the Bolsheviks for aid. I could see no other way to help them. Right now it is very difficult to collect donations anywhere. He said that the Bolsheviks are not giving them anything. They are simply seizing everything that is still left. I advised him to try to obtain food and money in other places. O my God, how much people have to suffer on account of this miserable and wasteful war! In Wiszniewo, the Bolsheviks have already issued their decree on the separation of Church and State. Father M i=k owski, 1 the seminary professor, came to see me. I asked him to help Father Piotrowski with his youth work. I begged him to be guided solely by Catholic principles, as Father Muckermann had been. We began to talk about nationalism. He is Polish, and, as far as I know, an unbiased and God-fearing person. I complained that there were many chauvinist priests here, Poles as well as Lithuanians, but very few truly Catholic priests. Some priests think that they can get the people to board the nationalist wagon and then drive them into the Church that way. But in most cases, the wagon falls apart and does not bring the people into the Church. It is better to get into the Catholic wagon in the first place and drive straight to Church. Father Muckermann’s work here in Vilnius was a good example. He attracted a great many people. If it suits them, lay people can make good use of religion, of the priests, and the Church itself to promote their political objectives. But when there is a need to defend the Church and the Catholic Faith, then these same peo- ple excuse themselves very politely and retreat to the sidelines. This mat- ter of the Polish schools here in Vilnius is a good instance of this. In the past, when it was necessary to protect the Polish character of the schools against the Germans, the lay people sided with the priests. It is better not to have any schools at all than to have the children subjected to German influence. Now that we have to take a stand for religious education in the schools against the demands of the Bolsheviks, these same teachers have 202 1 Stanislaw Mi = kowski taught Patrology, World History, and the Polish language at the Vilnius Seminary.