The Kremlin and the Vatican

Russia’s Nikita Khrushchev, an atheist, recently granted an interview to the Hearst Newspapers editor-in-chief, William Randolph Hearst. At the close of the interview the Soviet leader said that “God is but a mask” put on by some people whose actions “are contrary to humanism.” Khrushchev continued: “They lean on the word of God and then violate it. How can we understand it when churchmen, clergymen, throw holy water on guns that are intended to kill people? Is that the highest showing of man’s spirit? God is being used by these people for hire. They are Pharisees.”

Though the Vatican declined any official statement on Khrushchev’s remarks, Vatican spokesmen said that such antireligion statements were “the most blatant in the Kremlin’s recent times” and that they serve “as a further warning to the world that communism is the world’s public enemy No. 1.” Vatican spokesmen asked: “Cannot a priest also bless a gun to preserve peace?”—New York Journal American, November 26, 1957.