{"id":648,"date":"2025-11-21T11:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ewtnromania.com\/2025\/11\/21\/belarus-pardons-2-catholic-priests-after-vatican-talks\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T11:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:28:02","slug":"belarus-pardons-2-catholic-priests-after-vatican-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/2025\/11\/21\/belarus-pardons-2-catholic-priests-after-vatican-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Belarus Pardons 2 Catholic Priests After Vatican Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"faq-summary\">\n<p><strong>Q: What is the main news in this article?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A: Belarus has pardoned and released two Catholic priests, Father Henrykh Akalatovich and Father Andzej Yukhnevich, after talks between Belarusian leaders and the Vatican.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Why were these priests imprisoned?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A: Father Akalatovich was sentenced for &#8220;high treason,&#8221; a charge he denies as a &#8220;gross provocation,&#8221; while Father Yukhnevich was sentenced for alleged abuse of minors, which he also denied.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Why did Belarus decide to pardon them now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A: The pardons are described as an act of &#8220;goodwill&#8221; following intensified contacts with the Vatican and aligning with the Roman Catholic Church&#8217;s jubilee year, with Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti&#8217;s visit potentially playing a role.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: What does this say about religious freedom in Belarus?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A: While the pardons are a positive step, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom previously reported that religious freedom in Belarus has been &#8220;trending negatively,&#8221; with the government exerting tight control over society and closing churches critical of the regime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThis is a summary of the article from https:\/\/ewtnvatican.com\/articles\/belarus-pardons-two-catholic-priests-vatican-talks. Visit this link to view more.\r\n\r\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"JY3ETSn80P\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ewtnvatican.com\/articles\/belarus-pardons-two-catholic-priests-vatican-talks\">Belarus pardons 2 Catholic priests after talks with Vatican<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Belarus pardons 2 Catholic priests after talks with Vatican&#8221; &#8212; EWTN Vatican\" src=\"https:\/\/ewtnvatican.com\/articles\/belarus-pardons-two-catholic-priests-vatican-talks\/embed#?secret=udr3Ycb4PC#?secret=JY3ETSn80P\" data-secret=\"JY3ETSn80P\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q: What is the main news in this article? A: Belarus has pardoned and released two Catholic priests, Father Henrykh Akalatovich and Father Andzej Yukhnevich, after talks between Belarusian leaders and the Vatican. Q: Why were these priests imprisoned? A: Father Akalatovich was sentenced for &#8220;high treason,&#8221; a charge he denies as a &#8220;gross provocation,&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewtn.dk\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}