"Human Frailty"

At a secret session of the Cominform in Sofia last month, Communist leaders spent an entire day discussing Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, 56, Prince Primate of Hungary. The decision to arrest him had already been made; it remained to concoct just the right charges.

A charge of black-market currency speculation would anger anyone living in black-market-ridden countries behind the Iron Curtain. Sabotage of Hungarian land reform? That should go down well with the British socialists, who approve of land reform. Conspiracy with the Habsburgs? That was a brilliant idea; it would arouse the antimonarchist elements in the U.S. Conspiracy with the U.S.? That was just as good; it would arouse anti-U.S. elements in Europe. Eventually all the Communist delegates agreed on a draft bill of particulars against Mindszenty.

A Buried Box. In Budapest, the cardinal soon learned of what had been decided during the Cominform's busy day. He began to prepare for his arrest. In a stern farewell message to the clergy, he recalled that he had been lenient with the Catholic laity in giving absolution in cases where wrongdoing had resulted from Communist pressure; he warned that there must be no backsliding on the part of the clergy: "I have eased the conscience of the faithful; naturally this does not apply to a single priest, monk or nun."

On the night after Christmas, as the police convoy approached the cardinal's residence, he scribbled a hasty postscript on the envelope that held his message. He warned his fellow priests to be skeptical if they heard that he had resigned, or had "confessed." Even if they were shown his authentic signature on a confession, they should consider his signing as the result of "human frailty," i.e., the result of his inability to withstand Communist torture.

Then he withdrew to his chambers to pray. There, the police arrested him. They had been careful to come at night, to avoid the repetition of a memorable scene, just four years ago, when Mindszenty was being arrested by Hungarian fascists. At that time he refused to be driven off in a police car. He donned his robes, and, followed by 20 priests, walked to prison in broad daylight, blessing the people who lined the streets kneeling in prayer.

This time, the more efficient Communist police gave him barely time to kiss his weeping, 85-year-old mother goodbye. Quietly, he said: "Very well," and quietly entered the waiting police car, rosary in hand. Sticking closely to the Sofia decisions, the government announced that Mindszenty was being held incommunicado on suspicion of "treason, attempting to overthrow the democratic regime, espionage and foreign currency abuses." The Communists gave out a long list of incriminating documents said to have been found in "a metal box buried in a cellar in the cardinal's palace."

1,500 Pairs of Underwear. Communist newspapers took up the hue & cry, screamed that Mindszenty's reputation as an anti-Nazi was unmerited, that he had been "a notorious anti-Semite." Climax of this farrago was the charge that the Nazis had arrested Mindszenty only because he refused to give up his hoarded "1,500 pairs of underwear."

This charge was a typical Communist distortion. Truth was that one day in 1944, Hungary's Nazi dictator Ferenc Sza-lasi had decided to set up headquarters in the bishop's palace. Mindszenty, who was sheltering about 100 Jews in his cellar at the time, declared that so long as he was bishop, none of Szalasi's men would enter. The Nazis promptly occupied the palace. The police found a sizable store of clothes which Mindszenty had quietly collected for Hungary's persecuted and pillaged Jewry. The clothes included underwear which Szalasi had wanted for his own troops.

Mindszenty, the son of a poor peasant, had risen to the highest church office in his land. Some of Hungary's peasants, who used to flock together in crowds of 45,000 to hear him speak, have seen him, even in recent years, working the land at his mother's five-acre farm in the village of Mindzent. Hungarians, who were now asked to believe that Mindszenty was an anti-Semite, remembered his courageous wartime sermons attacking Naziism, in which he declared that "antiSemitism and the proceedings against the Jews are the shame of civilization."

"For Righteousness Sake." The reason for Mindszenty's arrest was plain. The Communists wanted to demonstrate that no power remained in Hungary that could stand against them. The demonstration might not prove entirely successful. Two days after Mindszenty's arrest was made public, the Minister of the Interior summoned four of Hungary's Roman Catholic bishops who, jointly with their Primate, had staunchly held out against a government plan designed to make the Catholic clergy virtually employees of the state. The minister told the four holdouts, on pain of imprisonment, to resign. They flatly refused. Nevertheless, the Communist press trumpeted the news that Hungary's Bench of Bishops had agreed to their terms.

Last week, the Hungarian Communists had the remarkable gall to invite the Vatican to negotiate an agreement on the status of the Hungarian church, "regardless of the personal case of Mindszenty." The Vatican rejected the overtures as a "puerile maneuver." Earlier, the Holy See had declared: "Whereas it has been dared to lay hands sacrilegiously on a very eminent cardinal . . . all those who have performed the aforesaid crime have incurred excommunication . . . and have been declared infamous . . ."

As for Mindszenty, the Hungarian government formally announced that "under the weight of evidence against him [he] made a confession." But, so far, the Communists have not published any confession, with or without his signature. Cardinal Mindszenty, despite the human frailty he knew, was a strong man. Just before his arrest, he had written: "This is now the word of the Sermon on the Mount: 'Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

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