Second Mindszenty?

On Corpus Christi Day last week, 3,000 people assembled before Budapest's venerable old Coronation Church for the traditional procession in which Joseph Peteri, bishop of Vacz, was to carry the Eucharist. But there proved to be some obstacles.

On the other side of the church square, in the streets through which the procession was to move, members of a Communist organization called the "Freedom Fighters" were ripping about in an ear-splitting motorcycle race. Communist youth battalions marched through the square, singing Communist songs. The crowd prayed and waited. Finally, the faithful were allowed by the police to hold their procession in a sidestreet. Their hymns were all but drowned by the motorcycles.

Warlike Nuns? The Communist attempt to break up Budapest's Corpus Christi procession was merely an incident in a new campaign waged by Hungary's Red regime against the Roman Catholic Church since the trial of Cardinal Mindszenty over two years ago. The ostensible cause: Hungary's Bench of Bishops had refused to support an anti-Western "peace" resolution of the Partisans of Peace, an international Communist front. When a group of Hungarian nuns refused to sign the "peace" resolution, one Red paper screeched: "These warlike sisters prefer to see burned and mangled corpses rather than healthy cheerful people . . ."

In the midst of the commotion, a sharp and sinister voice detailed what the Communists were trying to accomplish with their renewed campaign of hate. Minister of People's Culture Joseph Revai, Hungarian Politbureau member, made it clear in a speech to the Communist Central Committee that the remaining rights of the Catholic Church in Hungary must be broken.

Said Revai: "We will have to see to it that the government uses its right to propose and approve bishops ... To send a child to religious classes is equivalent to taking a stand against the People's Democracy. Religious classes have no business in our high schools any more."

Atom Bishop? Revai's sharpest blast was directed at Hungary's 11,532 members of religious orders. Cried Revai: "These reactionaries constantly spread imperialist propaganda, going from house to house spreading rumors, forming rosary fraternities, Bible-reading circles and hymn-singing groups."

By week's end, at least 100 priests were reported under arrest in Hungary's new anti-church drive. Ominously, the Red press referred to "Atom Bishop" Joseph Peteri as a "second Mindszenty."

The Roman Catholic Church was not the only victim. The Reds have also brought relentless pressure on Hungary's Lutheran Church (500,000 members). Staunchly anti-Communist Lutheran Bishop Lajos Ordass, recently freed after serving almost two years in prison, was stripped of his clerical rank by a special church court. Last week, Hungary's Lutheran Church took another step toward surrender to the Red state by choosing an avowed supporter of the Communist regime to succeed Ordass. He was Laszlo Dezsery, 36, who had made his stand amply clear when two years ago he denounced his fellow pastors as "slaves of the reactionaries."

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