While the Vatican was protesting the latest expulsion of a Catholic priest
from Russia, authorities there were expelling yet another one.
Following the expulsion over six months of a Catholic bishop and other priests,
sources of the Church in Russia reported that Father Edvard Maszkiewicz, a
Polish Salesian, was impeded Tuesday from returning to his parish.
Father Maszkiewicz, a parish priest in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, was
detained for several hours by the police on the border with Byelorussia, when
he was returning by car from Warsaw.
A police commander told him that "his church had been closed, his parish
removed and, therefore, he no longer needed to be a priest in
Rostov-on-Don." His visa was canceled, Catholic sources reported.
Father Maszkiewicz, 45, had been living in Russia for over 10 years. He
succeeded in building a church in that city. On Monday morning, unknown
individuals fired on the church.
Earlier on Tuesday, Father Jaroslaw Wisniewski, another Polish priest, was
deported to Japan from the Khabarovsk airport, where he had landed the previous
day.
Authorities gave no explanations for the expulsion, the official agency
Itar-Tass stated.
The Vatican protested against the expulsion of Father Wisniewski, alluding to
the possibility of a persecution against the Catholic Church in Russia.