MOSCOW (UCAN) -- Catholic bishops in Russia have issued a statement accusing the authorities of an organized campaign against the Catholic Church after visas of a bishop and a priest were revoked.

"Bishop Yezhi Mazur, responsible for the Diocese of St. Joseph in Irkutsk (eastern Siberia), was deprived, without any reason being given, of his visa which was valid until January 2003," said Archbishop Thaddeus Kondrusiewicz of Moscow, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia.

The April 20 statement, signed by Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, noted that two weeks earlier, in similar circumstances, an Italian priest was deprived of his visa, and that "it is becoming more frequent for foreign priests to be obstructed in the exercise of their pastoral duties."

"The events of the past month show that an organized campaign is being mounted against the Catholic Church in Russia," Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said.

Bishop Mazur, who was traveling from Warsaw, Poland's capital, was stopped by border guards at Moscow's main international airport of Sheremetevo April 19. He was told that his visa had been revoked, and was forced to fly back to Poland.

Bishop Mazur "is a Polish citizen and on several occasions he has requested either Russian citizenship or a residence permit, but was refused," Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said.

He added that "by such actions, government representatives are, in fact, targeting, in the first place, Russian citizens" who are Catholics.

Such acts, he pointed out, deprive Catholics of pastors and noted that the Catholic Church required to invite missioners from abroad "seeing that for 81 years the Catholic Church was deprived of the possibility of training and ordaining its own priests."

Russian Catholics, he said, are asking themselves, "Who is next? How much longer will this continue? Are Russian Catholics covered by the constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and the right to have their pastors?"

"Could it be the case that the government is treating them as second class citizens? Is the period of persecution of the faith returning? What is to become of Russian Catholics?" the archbishop asked in the statement.

The statement appealed to "the organs of government of the Russian Federation, in particular to President Vladimir Putin as the guarantor of the Constitution" and the Public Procurator's Office to uphold freedom of religion.

In the statement, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz also asked for the "restitution of justice," and for an end to "discrimination against Catholics."

"In our great concern, we make this vigorous protest at this attack on the constitutional rights of Russian Catholics," the statement added.

The bishops' conference said it regretted the "inaction of the public prosecutor's office which should see to the upholding of the law."

It also expressed regret over "the silence of most of the Russian and foreign human rights organizations called to protect the rights of religious minorities."

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