Catholics refuse to join request to keep churches out of politics

Published: 2005-01-18

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- Ukraine's Catholic leaders refused to join leaders of other denominations in demanding legislation to prevent churches' involvement in political campaigning. "We don't want to judge churches who supported particular candidates, and it isn't our job to propose legal changes," said Bishop Markijan Trofimiak of Lutsk, vicar general of Ukraine's Latin-rite bishops' conference. "The present law allows us to act and is not so bad. We don't think it would be wise to seek full-scale changes," he said. On Jan. 10, weeks after a presidential runoff, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches called on Ukraine's Parliament to deter religious groups from "illegally participating" in political campaigns. However, in a Jan. 17 telephone interview with Catholic News Service, Bishop Trofimiak said Catholic leaders had refused to sign the petition. "Our church could not have stayed silent in these elections, when basic principles were being violated -- if we had, it would have been a crime," said Bishop Trofimiak, who with Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Lviv's Eastern-rite cardinal, represents the Catholic Church on the council. "All we did was serve the truth and demand that the nation should have a free choice. It's for God to judge whether we did right."

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