BRATISLAVA, Slovakia: The Roman Catholic Church in Slovakia said Wednesday it would create a council to "search for a correct answer" to its role during World War II and the communist era that followed.Marian Chovanec, head of the Slovak Bishops' Conference, said at the end of a two-day meeting held in Presov that the council will help to clarify the church's history "that has been intentionally misinterpreted here ... under the influence of communist ideology."
In comments posted on the Bishops' Conference Web site Wednesday, Chovanec said the church must "adopt a standpoint on some periods in our history."
Speaking about the country's wartime rule by pro-Nazi priest Jozef Tiso, he said that the council will "search for a correct answer to questions about positive and negative aspects of this period."
Last month, Slovakia's Archbishop Jan Sokol came under strong criticism for describing Tiso's rule as a time of well-being. Some 70,000 Slovak Jews and thousands of Gypsies were deported from Slovakia during World War II, most of them perishing in Nazi concentration camps.
Sokol also was listed as an agent of the former communist secret police, the STB. He has repeatedly denied the allegations.
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