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Church and State in Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Stephen Kertesz
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Extract

The arrest, trial and sentence for life of Joseph Cardnial Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary, has profoundly shaken the conscience of the Western world and provoked a wave of protests on a scale unheard of before. The incident occurred at the climax of the tension between West and East. The figure of the Cardinal became the personification of a world-wide struggle between two fundamentally different conceptions of life. His broken resistance—both physical and psychological—symbolizes the fate of the millions oppressed and silenced by a ruthless Communist minority in East Europe. The recntations and self-contradictory confessions in the course of the trial had all the characteristics of the usual travesties of justice in Communistdominated countries. Pope Pius XII rightly stated in his allocution of February 14, 1949, that the behavior of Cardinal Mindszenty “appeared an accusation not against himself but against his very accusers and condemners.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1949 , pp. 208 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1949

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References

1 Documents on the Mindszenty Case (Budapest, 1949).Google Scholar

2 könyv, Fehte. A magyar köztarsaság és demokrácia elleni összeesküves okmányai (Budapest, 1947).Google Scholar

3 Report of the Hungarian Ministry of Home Affairs on the MAORT Sabotage, (Budapest, 1948).Google Scholar

4 The New York Times, September 29, 1948.Google Scholar

5 The New York Times, February 17, 1949.Google Scholar

6 After the capture of Constantinople (1453) the Sultan attacked the important Hungarian outpost, Nandorfehervar (Belgrade), the Pope ordered prayers in every Christian land and the tolling of bells at noon, which ever since has reminded the Christian world of dangers threatening their faith. Budapest had been under Turkish occupation more than a century and was reconquered at the end of the seventeenth century by an international army sponsored by Pope Innocent XI. The liberation of Hungary was probably the last crusade of Christendom.

7 In the Russian zone of interest, Hungary's situation is particularly difficult because the Hungarian nation has neither linguistic nor cultural affinities with the Russians. The other countries beyond the iron curtain, except the German territories, are either Slav or Greek Orthodox or both.

8 Despite the violent anti-Communist policy of the Horthy regime, the Hungarian people cherished no anti-Russian feelings. The Russian war prisoners during the first world war proved to be warmhearted good people and blended well with the Hungarian peasants. In the course of the second world war, the bulk of the Hungarians became so utterly disgusted with the Nazis that they were prepared to consider the Russians as real liberators. The war against Russia was most unpopular and fought with great reluctance by the Hungarian people. However, the wholesale lootings, robberies, and rapes of the invading Russian Army gave an initial blow to the potential pro-Russian feeling in the country. The Hungarian Communists explained often, with a touch of melancholy, that the greatest handicap to Communism in Hungary has been the behavior of the Red Army.

9 The best short review of this process was given by the former American Minister to Hungary, Schoenfeld, H. F. Arthur, “Soviet Imperialism in Hungary,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. XXVI, pp. 554–566Google Scholar. Cf. Nagy, Ferenc, The Struggle Behind the Iron Curtain (New York, 1948).Google Scholar

10 Prime Minister Dinnyés was forced to resign in December, 1948, because the Finance Minister of his Cabinet, who went to Austria and Germany to negotiate return of Hungarian goods, fled to Switzerland and resigned. The Prime Minister's successor, the Smallholder István Dobi, could be considered for all practical purposes a Communist. He told Parliament on December 14, 1948, that the Smallholder Party had adopted a program for “a complete showdown with capitalism and its total liquidation.” The New York Times, December 15, 1948.Google Scholar

11 The reason for Tildy's resignation was the arrest of his son-in-law, Victor Chornoy. He was recalled for “consultation” from his post as Minister to Egypt, then arrested, charged with treason, sentenced and hanged, on December 6, 1948.

12 The New York Times, February 2, 1949.Google Scholar

13 Some time before his flight he replied to Rálcosi, who had sounded him out on his attitude toward formation of a national Catholic Church: “To me religion on national lines is meaningless. You, who attacked Tito for propagating national Communism, should understand that.” The New York Times, February 3, 1949.Google Scholar

14 The New York Times, February 19, 1949.Google Scholar

15 At that time I was head of a special section in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and in charge of preparing the Hungarian case for the Peace Conference.

16 When I was appointed Minister to Italy, the Smallholder Prime Minister and Foreign Minister suggested to me that I should explore in Rome the possibilities of the renewal of diplomatic relations with the Vatican and the conclusion of a concordat. But they advised me to talk over the problems involved with President Tildy. The President gave me ambiguous, noncommittal instructions. One of the Catholic bishops assured me that the Communists and Russians supported the plan. Cardinal Mindszenty remained most skeptical about the sincerity of the Communist attitude. Since the Russian-run Allied Control Commission's consent was still necessary to the planned diplomatic move, I decided to clarify the Russian and Communist standpoint by direct approach. Before my decarture for Rome, I brought up the problem of exchange of envoys with the Vatican to the Russian Minister Pushkin and to the Communist leader Rakosi. I argued that Hungary had large Catholic masses and that it would be advisable for the new regime to settle all pending Church-State problems with the intervention of an experienced papal diplomat. The Russian Minister replied: “The Vatican is just an agent of American interests in Europe, financed by American capitalists. The new Hungarian democracy does not need the representative of such reactionary forces.” Rákosi's answer: “A papal nuncio would do the same thing as Mindszenty, but in a more subtle way. No, we definitely do not want two Mindszentys.”

17 As the first important legislative act of the new regime, an agrarian reform was carried out under the dictation of Marshal Voroshilof. AH the experts recognized in this law the first preparatory step towards the introduction of the cooperative and collective systems. The too-small allotments and the whole structure and execution of the law were destined first to get the support of landless peasantry, then to prove that private property cannot successfully operate in modern agriculture. However, in 1945, the Communist Party was fighting to get itself accepted by the peasantry. They then claimed that the reform respects private property in land. Anybody who even hinted that this agrarian reform would be followed by a cooperative system and eventually by the “collectives” was called a reactionary agitator and enemy of the people.

The new regime, including the Communists, recognized Cardinal Mindszenty's resistance to the Nazis. Therefore, under the provisions of the law, he was allowed to keep 300 Hungarian acres from his expropriated Church property.

18 The New York Times, June 7, 1948.Google Scholar

19 Text of the agreement was published in the Római Magyar Kurir, January 15, 1949.Google Scholar

20 As for the charges of mediaevalism, the Cardinal retorted:

“Abroad my position is said to be mediaeval. But if the parochial schools of the United States were taken away and in their places were substituted schools for the inculcation of Marxism, what would they say?

“In his book Religion and Marxism, now on sale in Hungary, Lenin says We desire the true Communist education of children. ‘We must teach youth Communist ethics and morals, including denial of the Ten Commandments. We do not believe in eternal moral values.’

“In every major question in the last three and a half years, including the constitution, land reform and nationalization, I have demanded a plebiscite. I ask if those are mediaeval who refuse to let the public express its will or I who demanded it?

“I do not want the Middle Ages; I want the rights of man. Ages and times do not concern me. The rights I demand were expressed long before the Middle Ages, and I notice that they have been incorporated in the charters drawn up since.

“On the basis of the natural right of parents and the church's divine mission to teach, die church will continue the struggle against the nationalization of the schools with every legal means.” The New York Times, June 29, 1948.Google Scholar

21 The New York Times, September 6, 1948.Google Scholar

22 In Hungary, a few weeks before Cardinal Mindszenty was seized, the head of the Lutheran Church, Bishop Louis Ordass, was thrown into prison on charges of misuses of currency. While in prison, he was asked to resign but has remained adamant so far. The New York Times, February 14, 1949Google Scholar. There were moves last month by Communism against churches in all East European countries. For example in Bulgaria fifteen Protestant ministers were indicted on charges of espionage, and Foreign Minister Vassil Kolarov announced on February 23, 1949, that a papal mission would not be allowed to work in Bulgaria any longer. The New York Times, February 26, 1949Google Scholar. The process of elimination is more advanced in the Baltic countries. According to a declaration of the chairman of the Supreme Lithuanian Committee of Liberation, the Right Rev. Mykolas Krupavicius, more than 50 percent of the Catholic clergy in Lithuania has been killed or deported to Siberia. The New York Times, January 28, 1949.Google Scholar