Laudatur!

The village of Mikofalva (pop. 1,100), 100 miles northeast of Budapest, is populated chiefly by Kelemens and Kovacses, who belong to the Paloc tribe, one of Hungary's oldest and toughest. For centuries, Kelemens and Kovacses have married only Kovacses and Kelemens, thus keeping outsiders from the village. They have not kept out Communism. The village has 250 card-holding party members. All Mikofalvians--Kelemens, Kovacses and Communists--are Roman Catholics.

On a recent Sunday, an American reporter and a visiting Italian Communist Senator journeyed to Mikofalva to see how Hungarian Catholics felt about Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, whom the Reds put in jail as a "traitor" (TIME, Jan. 10). The reporter found that Mikofalva's people thought their cardinal a good man. But he also found some exceptions. The strangest of these was Father Endre Molnar. Father Molnar is a Communist.

The First Communist. Father Molnar explained his peculiar faith to his visitors, just as his congregation was leaving his hilltop church, the women placid in bright calico skirts, the men proud in black Sunday suits and polished black boots. Father Molnar has built up an unreal paradoxical world in which history's most sharply opposite faiths are fantastically synthesized. He declared himself a strong believer in Marxism, but he maintained that spiritual guidance remained the clergy's rightful monopoly. On his bookshelf, he keeps church literature next to Stalin's Problems of Leninism. Marx's Kapital, he related regretfully, he was unable to afford. "The existence of God I will under no circumstances deny," said Father Molnar. But he added: "Nothing is certain but uncertainty." Cracked the Communist Senator: "With such principles, Father, you are guilty of heresy on two counts."

Father Molnar's archbishop, Gyula Czapik, has never reprimanded him for his heresy against Christianity. (In his diocese, five other priests--out of 450--are Communists.) Nor have Mikofalva's

Communists denounced Father Molnar. In Mikofalva's only school, now run by the government, the teachers have not removed the crucifixes from the walls. Said the secretary of the local Communist Party: "I would rather resign or face a purge than remove the image of the first Communist, Jesus Christ."

The Neighbor's Plow. But the majority of Father Molnar's flock object to his dual faith. They are strongly in favor of Mindszenty. Father Molnar barely managed to prevent a violent clash between Mikofalva's Communists and the pro-Mindszen-ty villagers. "A spark could have set off the flame," he said. He did not dare preach against Mindszenty. Privately, however, he referred to the cardinal as an anti-democrat. To Father Molnar it seemed that the cardinal simply had not been reasonable. "He knew he would be arrested sooner or later. He could have escaped. But he wanted a showdown between Church and State. Now there will hardly be a way out of this mess."

Many of Mikofalva's peasants were bewildered. Janos Kelemen, the local president of the Communist-run Peasant Party, to whom Hungary's postwar land reform had given two holds (2.84 acres) in addition to the three he had owned before, said humbly: "I am a stupid peasant. How should I know whether Mindszenty is guilty or not? They tell me in one paper one way, and then comes my friend and tells me these are just lies."

What worries Kelemen more than Mindszenty's guilt is the fear that the Communists will take his land and make it part of a kolkhoz (collective farm). He is not sure what a kolkhoz is, but, he said: "Whatever it is, it is nobody's business to tell me what to do with my land. I know best how the manure should be placed on a wheat field on a sloping hill. And I don't want my neighbor's plow to touch my soil. What's mine is mine, and no one can take it away from me, whether it is Emperor Franz Josef or the boss of the Communists, Rakosi."

The Pages of History. Father Molnar refers to his flock as mentally retarded and reactionary. "Hungarians," he said, "are always against something. Mindszenty was working on this theory to incite the people against the new democracy. He is a good and stubborn soldier. But he is a bad diplomat who does not know his history. How could he solve the world's ills by turning back the pages of history?"

Then Father Molnar took the visiting American to the house of a local Communist, a Kovacs, who has read the pages of history in the way the priest considered correct. As they entered, Comrade Molnar offered the greeting: "Laudatur Jesus Christus" (Praised be Jesus Christ).

"LaudaturI" echoed Comrade Kovacs.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.