SW News: The Belarusian government has asked the editors of the state's official newspaper Minskaya Pravda not to publish any more extremely vitriolic articles against the Catholic Church. On September 7, the newspaper had published a satirical caricature on its front page showing a blasphemous image of two Catholic priests sporting swastikas around their neck, alluding to Nazi collaboration. The newspaper also carried an article with the title "The mutation of faith, crosses can be varied.”

As per the news agency BelaPAN, the management of Minskaya Pravda has assured the government that they would respect and obey the directive. The Catholic bishops of Belarus strongly condemned the caricature and they stressed that it was offensive and unacceptable not only to Catholics but also to the people of Belarus. Citizens also came up with protests against the caricature and filed a petition with the government. They said that "such things appearing on a state-owned media seems to be an attempt to incite religious hostility towards the Catholic Church and its faithful." Eventually, the apostolic nuncio in Minsk, Mgr Ante Jozič also took up the matter with the authorities, forcing the government to intervene.

Believers demanded action against the state's newspaper based on Article 130 of the Belarusian Criminal Code that speaks of "incitement to racial, national and religious hatred and conflict."

The caricature shows two Catholic priests Jurij Kašira and Antonij Leščevič, of the Trinity Church in the village of Rositsa. They were brutally killed by Nazis in the 1943 Rositsa massacre. The Nazis had rounded up the villagers and detained them in the church. Only the two priests were allowed to fetch food for them. After sending the young men to camps, the Nazis burned alive the elderly, the sick, women and children in the stables in front of the church. The priests, who refused to leave the congregation, were not spared either. They were also burned. Around 1,528 people were killed that day.

Both the priests were canonized as martyrs in 1999, and twice a year, pilgrims gather at the church to celebrate their death anniversaries and feast day. A large cross was erected in memory of the priests.