Text: His Only Real Offense.

Year: January 1949.

Publisher: Catholic Advance.

Artist: Maloney.

Additional information: The cartoon depicts a priest, labeled as the ‘Champion of Human Rights’, defiantly facing a pistol-toting communist attempting to arrest him. It was published in the Kansas-based Catholic Advance newspaper alongside a story about a newly-ordained priest who was allegedly killed by Romanian communist authorities after refusing to abandon the Catholic Church. The priest reportedly said, ‘Shoot, because I will not deny my faith,’ before being shot. The priest, clothed in his Mass vestments, died shortly after. The source for the story is stated as ‘SICO’ (Servizio Informazioni Chiese Orientali), the information service for the ‘Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church’, tasked with maintaining contact with the Eastern Catholic Churches.