Procesul intentat celor trei episcopi catolici acuzați de „spionaj în favoarea Vaticanului”: Augustin Pacha, Adalbert Boros și Joseph Schubert
The lawsuit filed against the three Catholic bishops accused of „spying for the Vatican”: Augustin Pacha, Adalbert Boros and Joseph Schubert

Summary/Abstract: Following the Soviet model, the states that found themselves in the sphere of influence of their “great neighbor from the East”, behind the “Iron Curtain”, adopted, through the political decision‑makers, the same means and measures, staged against the Catholic clergy – priests, bishops, monks and nuns – and even some Catholic laymen, various trials in which they were accused of undertaking espionage actions in favor of the Western powers and at the expense of the “people” – respectively against the newly established popular order. Unsurprisingly, the new political structure in the People’s Republic of Romania could not make a dissonant note either. As in most socialist states, the ephemeral power in Bucharest initiated actions aimed at massive purges of the “elements” among the Christian Churches that did not show trust for the regime, opposed the communist ideology, respectively who showed no signs that they wanted some kind of rapprochement and collaboration. We will focus in the present study on three bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, through whose public trial – simulacrum, the regime has tried to discredit both the Church and themselves, in their capacity as clergy. Prominent representatives of the Catholic Church, they were considered “enemies of the people” and were given as a negative example. In the following we will deal with the trial of the three bishops who were concocted the guilt of being “spies, traitors and plotters in the service of the Vatican and the Italian espionage center”, being included in the so‑called “lot of the Italian Legation”, namely: Augustin Pacha, residential bishop of Timișoara, Adalbert Boros, auxiliary bishop of Timișoara and Joseph Schubert, Auxiliary Bishop of Bucharest – the last two clandestinely consecrated in the highest rank of the presbyterate. Among those summarily judged and arbitrarily convicted by a military court created especially for this occasion there are also other people, whom we will deal with in future studies dedicated to this media event of the era.

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