"Their Tongues Cut Off"

HUNGARY

Agitated and filled with foreboding, Archbishop Joseph Mindszenty hurried into the Vatican just three years ago. He was a week late; the Red army had held up his visa.

Next day Pope Pius XII placed the flat red cardinal's hat on the head of peasant-born Joseph Mindszenty and 31 other prelates. As he did so, the Pope pronounced an ancient formula:

"Receive . . . this red hat, the sign of the unequaled dignity of the cardinalate, by which it is declared that thou shouldst show thyself intrepid even to death by the shedding of thy blood, for the exaltation of the blessed faith . . ."

Later, according to an account given by American priests, the Pope said to Mindszenty: "You may be the first to see these blood red colors turn to red blood."

Historically, it was curious to find mention of martyrdom retained in the ritual creating a cardinal. The church's list of martyrs contains scores of bishops, but only one cardinal.* When the office evolved (probably in the 5th Century), the cardinals were in charge of important churches in and around Rome. Yet while there was evil in the world, there would be danger, even at the center of Christendom. The cardinals were reminded that they as well as those who went among the infidel were expected to be faithful unto death.

The church in Rome of which Cardinal Mindszenty became titular head was Monte Celio's 5th Century rotunda of St. Stephen the first martyr (about 50 A.D.).* On the walls of St. Stephen's are 34 frescoes showing scenes of Christian martyrdom--St. Margaret, her breast torn with hooks; Bishop Artemius, crushed between stone slabs; Bishop Simeon cut to pieces with knives. But not all martyrdom involves death. One fresco at St. Stephen's tells of a 4th Century persecution of Christians by King Unericus in North Africa. The description reads: "Those who talked and raised their hands against the king had their tongues and hands cut off."

Joseph Mindszenty has lived for three years with the threat of martyrdom hanging over him. He knew it and talked about it, and said he was ready to accept it. He even prepared for the form of martyrdom that overtook him last week, the martyrdom devised by King Unericus--the martyrdom of the tongue that could no longer clearly profess that to which he had dedicated his life.

The Communists, who have their own martyrs, well understand the saying "Blood of martyrs, seed of the church." They sought to remove Mindszenty, who stood in their way, but above all they sought to cheat him of his martyr's crown. Thus last week Mindszenty appeared in court, "confessing" and "recanting."

How the Communists managed it no one in the West knows. (To this day no one knows the secret of the 1937 purge trial confessions in Russia.) Somehow they broke Joseph Mindszenty, man of burning courage. Somehow they made him say things he had denied with the utmost vehemence, and with full knowledge of the consequences, until his arrest 40 days before.

Since King Unericus cut out tongues, men have not diminished in evil, but they have learned subtler arts and more refined tortures than the knife and pincers. Nobody can prove that Mindszenty was drugged or beaten. All that can be said with certainty is that Mindszenty's whole life proved he was a brave and stubborn man, a man who at every fork in his life proudly took the dangerous, uphill way; to have made such a man "recant" was a sort of miracle of evil.

The Father's House. Joseph Mindszenty comes from fighters' country--the low, rolling Dunantul, on the western bank of the Danube, the rampart where for 150 years Hungarians fought the Turkish invaders from the East. He was born (1892) in the village of Csehimindszenty, the son of Janos Pehm. The Communists make much of the fact that the Pehms are of German origin although they have lived in Hungary for three centuries. Janos Pehm was a peasant. He was also mayor of the village, a bold, devout man who perpetually rebelled against the county's landlords and petty potentates. Says one Hungarian priest: "The Primate is a great man, it is true. But his father--he was an even greater man."

With his two sisters, Joseph worked all day on his father's 20 acres, lived in his father's one-story house that was built of sun-baked brick. When he went to the seminary in a nearby town, many of his fellow students looked down on him as a peasant's son. He was an intense, unsmiling and brilliant student.

The Sick & the Jailed. At 23, Joseph Pehm was ordained and went home to Csehimindszenty, where his mother proudly watched him celebrate his first Mass. In 1917 he went to teach in the small town of Zalaegerszeg, later became its parish priest. The parish he took over was in poor shape. He immediately started building a new church and a new school. He kept four cows and distributed milk to the undernourished children. He spent much time visiting the sick and the jailed. Soon he became a prisoner himself. When Bela Kun established his four months' Communist reign of terror in 1919, Father Pehm attacked him in a pamphlet. The Communists led him through the town's streets "in shame," then imprisoned him in the county courthouse.

Father Pehm was a stern priest. The people of Zalaegerszeg, like most Hungarians, loved wedding feasts that lasted well into the next day. He indignantly ruled that there would be no more weddings on Saturday; he wanted all his flock fit for Mass on Sunday. Once he called in a young chaplain and said: "Last night I observed you walking along the river bank with a widow. First, I do not think it proper that a young chaplain walk alone on a lonely road at night; second, I do not think it correct for him to walk with a young widow; and third, if you did these things, you should ask for your transfer. Please do so."

They came to call him the "Pope of Zalaegerszeg." When Finance Minister Janos Bud started slashing state expenditures for religious and social work, he remarked that Zala county had better be left alone: "That priest is a tough fellow to get into trouble with."

1,500 Pieces of Underwear. Mindszenty's opposition to the Nazis made him a national figure. He had taken the uphill way again. He preached against the Nazis' "new paganism." When the Nazis occupied Hungary, many Hungarians of German descent dropped their Magyarized names and started using their old German ones again. Tough Father Joseph Pehm did the contrary. He dropped his German name and took a Hungarian one, derived from his native village--Mindszenty.

Ten days after the Germans took over, Joseph Mindszenty became bishop of Veszprem. In his graceful rococo palace, Bishop Mindszenty hid many Jews who were being persecuted by the Nazis. Last week, a witness spoke up--but not in the Communists' Budapest courtroom. She was Mrs. Janos Peter, a Hungarian Jew who had escaped from Auschwitz concentration camp. She now lived in Vienna. "I was advised to flee to Veszprem," she related. "I put myself under the protection of Bishop Mindszenty. He received me warmly and hid me in the cellar of his palace. At least 25 people were there. Mindszenty brought food for us. He came to us several times a day and comforted us with apostolic words."

The Hungarian Nazis finally arrested Mindszenty. Every Hungarian knows the story of how he walked to prison in his full robes, blessing the people as he went. When the Nazis took over his palace, they found stores of clothing he had collected for the poor. On this fact the Reds now base a charge that Mindszenty was arrested for hoarding 1,500 pieces of underwear. For five months, the Nazis kept Mindszenty in Sopron-Kohida prison.

When the Russians came they opened the jail doors to all political prisoners. Mindszenty hitchhiked back to Veszprem. Soon the Vatican gave him a new see, Esztergom, which carries with it primacy over all others in the land.

In three years, Mindszenty had risen rapidly from parish priest to Prince-Primate. The church knew it was entering a fateful struggle in Hungary. Mindszenty was inexperienced, with little knowledge of the world or of diplomacy. He had, however, two assets that must have recommended him to the Vatican: 1) an anti-Nazi record so clear that the Communists could not besmirch it, and 2) extraordinary strength of character.

But in this combination of strength and inexperience lay the makings of tragedy.

Soon after he became Primate of Hungary, a friend asked Mindszenty's mother whether she was happy over her son's rise. The old woman said: "I have been happy many times about my son, and happiest when he prepared for the priesthood. But I lamented over him when they led him to Esztergom."

"I Am the Church." In many ways, the Prince-Primate lived like the parish priest. In his vast, gloomy Esztergom palace, he used only a dining room and a bedsitting room (never heated) where he received visitors. On the table which under Mindszenty's predecessors bore the exquisite weight of geese and pheasant and rich Hungarian wine, only one hot meal a day was set before the Primate. On Fridays, he ate only bread & water as a sacrifice for Hungary's liberation from Communism.

As in his village days, he kept a cow which his mother had sent him. "Now the Prince-Primate has milk," he once said, "that is quite enough." Since he no longer had a gardener, he worked in the palace gardens, where chickens now scratched among the once meticulously trimmed greenery. One day a delegation came to him to ask for a contribution to charity. "I have no money here," said Mindszenty. "Take the rug." The surprised delegation walked out carrying an oriental rug.

He tirelessly inspected the parishes in his diocese. His sharp eyes missed nothing. Once he confirmed a group of boys & girls in front of a village church. During the ceremonies, he glanced at the roof of the church and suddenly whispered to the local priest: "Two tiles are missing."

He was deeply devoted to his mother and wrote a book on motherhood. He visited her every summer and worked on the old farm in Csehimindszenty. In the winter, she came to stay with him. Even in the cardinal's palace, she always wore a peasant woman's traditional black kerchief over her head.

Yet, to his flock, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty seemed like a chilly, aloof prelate. A fellow priest recalls his visiting a party for poor children; the Cardinal moved slowly amid the overawed moppets, smiling frostily and here & there bestowing a restrained pat on the little heads. He never forgot what his red hat stood for.

He was eager for martyrdom--even jealous of it. One day, as he was riding through Budapest followed by several other priests, the car bearing his entourage was stoned by Communists. Mindszenty immediately stopped his own car and wrathfully approached the Red mob. "I am the Church!" cried Cardinal Mindszenty. "If you want something of the Church, stone me!"

The clash between Mindszenty and the Communists who ruled his country was not one that could be resolved by "rendering unto Caesar." This new Caesar was all-devouring. In states which do not try to bite deeply into the personal lives of their citizens, state and church can go their separate ways in peace; the Communist state is the instrument of a church--the secular church of international Communism. It teaches a system of ethics directly opposed to Mindszenty's. It actively seeks to turn as many men as it can away from God. It uses the full force of its police power, its educational system and its socialized economy to make its converts and to destroy its religious rivals. In the struggle in which Mindszenty found himself there was no logical line between church and state. All this was clear from what had happened in Russia.

By the end of World War II, nine other countries* (not counting the Russian zones of Germany and Austria) lay between the paws of the Red army. These lands contained 80 million people, of whom 42 million belonged to churches affiliated with Rome. Most of the other inhabitants belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church. The Communists knew what to do with them; in Russia they had smashed the Orthodox Church, then forged a tool out of the remnants. The Protestant churches, in general, stood aloof from the struggle.*

In Rumania, 1,500,000 Roman Catholics of the Greek rite had been forced into the Orthodox Church. The same fate befell 3,500,000 Ruthenian Catholics, now citizens of the U.S.S.R. In countries predominantly Catholic the Communists had to pursue a different line; the intermediate step in their plan was to set up "national" Catholic churches, separate from Rome.

A few months ago, Hungary's Communist Boss Matyas Rakosi had an interview with Istvan Barankovics, leader of Hungary's Catholic Democratic People's Party. He assured Barankovics that the Communists had no intention of destroying religion in Hungary. He asked how Barankovies would feel about "liberating the Hungarian Catholic church from Rome." Said Barankovics: "A religion based on national lines is without significance. You, who attacked Tito, should appreciate that."

The Business of Living. The Hungarian Catholics had three courses open to them: collaborate with the Communists, spar for time or fight.

A few took the first course. Among these was Father Istvan Balogh, a fat priest with a Rabelaisian appetite for food and good living. Father Balogh had varied his clerical duties with jobs as a copywriter for cinema ads and a newspaper editor. He had organized the egg and poultry business around Szeged and liked to help out at summer carnivals--in the capacity of treasurer. Father Balogh became a member of the Communist-dominated government. Said he: "Let us have a reconciliation so that every man can sleep in peace in his bed. For Cardinal Mindszenty to accept martyrdom is one thing. But what of the 6,000,000 Hungarian Catholics whose business is to go on living?"

The second group, who wanted to temporize, was led by piano-playing Laszlo Banass, who succeeded Mindszenty as bishop of Veszprem, and Gyula Czapik, archbishop of Eger. Their policy was worked out by two Jesuits, Father Joseph Janasi, one of Hungary's leading intellectuals, and Father Kerkai, organizer of youth movements. They argued that no matter how strongly Hungarian Catholics opposed the Communists they had no immediate prospect of successful resistance. The thing to do was to make some concessions and wait to see what would turn up. A considerable part of the Catholic clergy and perhaps a majority of the Bench of Bishops agreed with this view. It was in line with the policy adopted by Adam Cardinal Sapieha in Poland and by Archbishop Joseph Beran in Czechoslovakia.

The third view--all-out intellectual resistance--was adopted by Prince-Primate Mindszenty. The largest group of Catholic clergy and laymen followed him. The Communists now say that Mindszenty believed that war between the U.S. and Russia was very close. There is reason, entirely apart from Communist statements, to believe that Mindszenty did hold this view. Whether it determined his policy is not clear. A man of his battling nature might have adopted a fighting policy whether or not he believed that help was at hand.

For whatever reason, Mindszenty lashed out. Just before the 1945 elections he circulated a pastoral letter which stated: ". . . It was tyranny that brought Europe into this dreadful war ... It was tyranny that trampled on the most sacred human rights ... It was tyranny that denied even in theory that the individual has a right to develop his abilities, his talents, his tastes . . . But we must not have the kind of 'democracy' that replaces one ruthless, power-hungry clique with another . . . We ask you, our brethren, to weigh these words before you cast your votes . . . Do not be frightened by the threat of the sons of evil. The less opposition it finds, the stronger will tyranny grow . . ."

The Unstrung Lute. After this, huge crowds thronged churches and public squares when he spoke; thousands followed him when he led the procession on the feast day of St. Stephen, King of Hungary, carrying the saint's mummified right hand from Buda's St. Stephen Chapel to the coronation church.

Mindszenty did not fight the Communists' land reform, which cost the Hungarian church almost nine-tenths of its holdings. He made his great stand when the Communists started their drive to nationalize Hungary's schools and make them the tools of Communist propaganda. The church had run and supported from its own funds over 60% of all Hungarian schools.

After losing the larger part of its income as a result of the land reform, the church had trouble keeping the schools open. The government solicitously offered to pay the Catholic teachers, which would make them servants of the Communist state. Mindszenty vehemently refused. Then, on direct instruction from Moscow, the Communists decided to nationalize the schools outright. When Hungary's Parliament formally passed the nationalization bill, Mindszenty ordered church bells throughout Hungary to toll as a sign of sorrow and alarm.

The Communists tried to silence Mindszenty by offering him safe conduct out of Hungary. He refused. "The wolf has more security in the forest than an honest Christian in the Hungarian Communist state today," he told a visitor at the time. "In four months I shall probably be waiting my turn in a hangman's cell. But I shall never change my policy or take back any of the things I said against the Communist government. God has ordained my fate and I give myself into His hands."

He said: "We are sitting by the waters of Babylon. They want us to learn songs as foreign to us as the sounds of an unstrung lute."

This kind of talk alarmed many Catholics in Hungary. In Rome pale-browed monsignori fluttered soft hands in distress at the Prince-Primate's "tactlessness." It was not so much what he said as the way he said it.

Nevertheless, Rome noted that the conciliatory policy of Cardinal Sapieha and Archbishop Beran was not succeeding in stemming the Communist advance against the church. Pope Pius XII backed Mindszenty against the Hungarian moderates.

Of Justice & Charity. Last November, the Communists began to close in on Mindszenty. His residence was watched night & day. The Reds took over a nearby factory and turned it into a dormitory for the 80 plainclothesmen assigned to guard the cardinal's palace. Mindszenty knew what was coming. He wrote: "I do not accuse my accusers ... I am praying for a world of justice and charity and also for those who, in the words of my Master, know not what they do."

He asked his mother to stay with him. Churchmen who visited them reported mother Mindszenty and her son to be calm and happy. Priests said that whenever government officials came to see the cardinal, he proudly held his hand higher & higher as they bent to kiss his ring.

Mindszenty wrote his last pastoral letter. On the envelope that held it, he scribbled the now famous note to his clergy, advising them that any "confession" that might appear some day over his signature would only be the result of "human frailty." In other letters, he warned that he might be drugged and thus tricked into confessing what he had not committed.

The day after Christmas, the Communist police came for Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty. His mother had told him: "Son, do not be afraid of death, if necessary."

In all Hungarian churches (except in the diocese of Archbishop Czapik) priests read Mindszenty's last pastoral letter. It was also his answer to those who, like Czapik, wanted to compromise with the sons of evil. "After taking so many things, the world can still rob us of this or that, but it cannot take our faith in Jesus Christ," said Mindszenty.

That was the Mindszenty the Communists arrested. Nobody had pressed him into his dangerous opposition. He had not fooled himself into thinking he was safe. He had taken, out of his own unyielding character, the uphill road to martyrdom.

Free from Pressure? Five weeks later, a different Joseph Mindszenty sat in court.***** He was dressed in black, like an ordinary priest. Before the trial opened, the presiding judge read a letter from the accused to the Minister of Justice.

"I wish to lessen the present tension," Mindszenty had written. "I voluntarily admit that, in principle, I committed the acts in the indictment . . . After 35 days of constant meditation ... I consider that an agreement between church and state is necessary ... I hereby willingly declare--free from pressure, of course--that I am willing to withdraw from the exercise of my duties for a time . . ."

In court Mindszenty again & again declared he was sorry for what he had done. When he admitted receiving dollar donations from abroad, and letting his subordinates sell them on the black market, he said: "I am sorry. I wish to repay the damage done to the Hungarian state."

The presiding judge asked: "Did anyone force you to make your confession?" Mindszenty answered: "No." The judge then mentioned the letter which Mindszenty had written before his arrest, repudiating any confession he might make. Said the cardinal: "I want to state that I see things differently now. I want to repeat--I regret my error. I want the letter to be considered null and void."

The Communists issued a "Yellow Book," containing what they called Mindszenty's written confession. It included passages of almost childishly eager self-accusation very reminiscent of the style of the Moscow purge trials, and bearing no relation to the character of Joseph Mindszenty. Samples: "I organized all those forces, at home and abroad, whose interest it was to overthrow the republic, and with. it its institutions and accomplishments ... I expected the restoration of the monarchy after World War III . . . I wanted to crown Otto [of Habsburg] myself because it would have secured for me all those privileges that are granted to one who is foremost in the peerage . . ."

If this were all the Communists had to offer, the world could be sure that Mindszenty's will had been taken away from him by drugs or torture. But the successors of King Unericus had wrought more skillfully than this. The Mindszenty who stood in the courtroom did not seem to have been drugged or tortured. Reliable Western observers who were present noted (as the photographs confirmed) that he seemed pale and tense. However, he gave the impression of a man in possession of his faculties. No drug known to Western science could account for his repeated "confessions." No one who knew anything about Mindszenty could imagine what torture could bring this strong man to deny himself.

Communist propagandists made the most of the cardinal's recantation. Broadcasts of the proceedings made a deep impression on Hungarians, most of whom were glued to their radios from the trial's start. Many, who had believed in his innocence before, now changed their minds when they heard Mindszenty's own voice.

"I Prayed This Morning." Once during the trial, Mindszenty was permitted to see his mother. With tears in her eyes, she asked him whether they were treating him well. "Don't worry, mother," he said, "everything will come out all right."

On the last day of the testimony Mindszenty spoke coherently and movingly in a low, firm voice:

"I have half a century on my shoulder, half a century of definite education and principles. This education and these principles are built into the life of a human being like railway rails are anchored into the earth. This explains many things . . .

"I have been for more than 40 days before the police and the court. They ask me and I answer. The questions and the answers are not only for those who question me. A man also gives an answer to his own soul . . .

"If I collided with the laws of the state I regret it. I am sure, while remaining faithful to basic principles, I would do certain things differently in the same situation today. I have never been the enemy of the Hungarian people. I have no quarrel with the workers and with the peasants to whom I and my family belong.

"I prayed this morning to my Lord and asked for peace. Not peace tomorrow, or in the distant future, but peace in our time.

"I brought the love of my church to this courtroom, and I beg for this love for the Hungarian state to which I have shown obedience here. I also beg for this love for myself and may the Lord give wisdom to the court when they pass sentence ..."

The court adjourned for two days. Then it pronounced sentence on Joseph Mindszenty : imprisonment for life.

This trial would be remembered and discussed for many years. One lesson was presently and dreadfully clear. Once the Communists had established their rule, no man, however strong, could be sure of maintaining his integrity. Mindszenty, looking forward to martyrdom, had quoted St. Paul: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

They had not let Mindszenty die. They had arranged a more bitter martyrdom for him.

* John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, was named a cardinal in May 1535, after Henry VIII had imprisoned him. Henry prohibited delivery of the red hat to England, declaring that instead he would send Fisher's head to Rome for the hat. Shortly thereafter, Fisher was beheaded.

* Not to be confused with St. Stephen, King of Hungary (975-1038)

* Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania.

* This has done them little good in Hungary where their schools have been nationalized. Lutheran Bishop Lajos Ordass, who tried to oppose the Communists, is in prison on a phony black-marketing charge. Ferenc Nagy, a leading Presbyterian who as Premier tried to collaborate with the Communists, was forced to flee the country.

* On trial with Mindszenty were six other men also accused of participating in the "conspiracy." They all "confessed," including the cardinal's secretary, Andras Zachar and Prince Paul Eszterhazy, once Hungary's richest man.

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