The Ukrainian dispute is undeniably both sad and deplorable, since it is seen to be not only splitting the faithful into iwo separate communities, those who obey the decision of the Pope and those who disobey it — while claiming nevertheless that their dispute «has no connection with alleged militancy against either the Pope or the Universal Church» | but is also producing the painful and almost unprecedented situation where Ukrainian is seen to be against Ukrainian.
The actual desire for the creation of a patriarchate concerns not an «overwhelming majority» of the Church in exile, but rather the Church in its entirety.
The only difference is that some are prepared to respect and abide by the Pope’s ruling that due to canonical and pastoral reasons, this cannot at the moment be realised; while others, with complete disregard for either moral principles or civil laws, seek to proclaim and recognise that which simply does not exist outside own wishful thinking.
In 1969 all 20 Ukrainian bishops including Cardinal Slipyj himself, petitioned the Pope to create a patriarchate for the Ukrainian Catholic Church, with Cardinal Slepyj as its patriarch.
However, in view of the reasons put forward by the Pope for not being able to satisfy this request, although remaining sympathetically disposed toward it, Cardinal Slipyj, together with all Ukrainian bishops, in 1971 publicly accepted the Pope’s decision in the spirit of «obedience and with resignation to God’s will,» and accordingly advised their faithful to do likewise.
Had in fact this admirable standpoint on the part of the Cardinal and the Ukrainina bishops, together with their corresponding advice to the faithful, been strictly adhered to, this present deplorable situation within the Church would never have arisen.
The fact that it has developed, and become increasingly exacerbated, is due to Cardinal Slipyj subsequently ignoring and defying the Pope’s decision — reiterated at least three times — and allowing himself to be called and acclaimed by Bishop Praszko of Australia, Bishop Borecky of Canada, together with some clergy and patriarchal militants as «patriarch».
Furthermore, when Cardinal Slipyj himself started to use this title and publicly declared «We do already have our patriarchate, the Archbishop Major and patriarch have jurisdiction over all the bishops» and, finally «our Church is in fact a patriarchate, «these claims by him were not, and could not, be accepted by the majority of the Ukrainian bishops, clergy and predominantly silent faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in diaspora.
Among those who did not accept it were Bishop Hornyak, his loyal clergy and a section of the faithful.
Those who chose to follow the cardinal in defiance of the Pope’s ruling, namely the patriarchal committees and militants, suported by some political elements known as Banderists who are not a cultural organization but an extreme rightwing chauvinistic illegal underground party (whose predominantly neo-Nazi style doctrines inspire their domineering attitude and desire to control every aspect of the Ukrainian people’s lives, including church affairs), saw fit to institute a «Mafia style» campaign and distortions of the truth through the medium of their press, financial boycotting and disturbances in churches in order to browbeat their bishops, clergy and faithful into acknowledging Cardinal Slipyj as their patriarch, with or without the blessing of Rome.
This «obscure and disorderly dispute» has, therefore, become the subject of much bitterness find resentment for those revolting and deep anguish and heartbreak for Bishop Hornyak, his loyal clergy and faithful, who have sipply been made the scapegoat for matters entirely outside their control.
The nucleus of this dispute is, therefore, not so much a «desire by the overwhelming majority for a patriarchate,» but rather a head on collision course with the Holy See taken by those who consider themselves better versed in Church Law than the Holy Father himself.
The reason for Pope Paul’s decision has been expressed in detail by the Holy Father himself in his letter dated July 7, 1971 to Cardinal Slipyj. Since those reasons put forward were of a canonical and pastoral nature, as prviously explained, there is no question of either the «Vatican’s Ostpolitic» or the alleged desire of the Pope to legalise a few bishops and priests «to bargain the Patriarchate for this concession» being in any way involved.
At this very time there is a conspiracy of mass financial boycott of church collections, together with an intense campagn against Bishop Hornyak and his loyal priest, designed to bred down their physical and mental resistance, culminating in their total financial collapse and capitulation to anarchy and mob rule within the Church.
