Religion Behind the Iron Curtain

President Shuster of Hunter College, New York, knows Europe at first hand and in happier days has visited most of the countries of which he writes. He has relied on the reports of refugees from the iron-curtain countries for much of his description of the state of religion behind the iron curtain. Apparently, he has taken their testimony at face value, forgetting that European refugees, politically minded, all have their bias, and their reports have therefore to be checked for accuracy with those of others of differing points of view. Dr. Shuster is a Catholic, and, although he gives some consideration to the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox situation, for the most part "religion" to him means the Roman Catholic religion. The cases of Cardinal Mind??enty in Hungary and of Stepinac in Jugoslavia are given a treatment all out of proportion to their importance, as has been the case in the American press generally. In the case of Czechoslovakia, his informants have apparently been Slovak Catholics, judging by his whitewash of Hlinka and Tiso. But the general picture of oppression of religious institutions in the communist countries is true to the facts and it is well for Americans to have this description of conditions in Russia, eastern Germany, Czechoslavakia Jugoslavia, Poland, the Baltic States and Roumania. (Kirkus Reviews)