József Mindszenty (29 March 18926 May 1975) was a Hungarian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Esztergom and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 1945 to 1973. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, for five decades "he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary".
During World War II, Mindszenty was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. After the war, he opposed communism and communist persecution in his country. As a result, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial that generated worldwide condemnation, including a United Nations resolution.
After eight years in prison, Mindszenty was freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and granted political asylum by the United States embassy in Budapest. He lived there for the next fifteen years. He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971, and died in exile in 1975 in Vienna, Austria.
His cause for sainthood was opened in 1993 and Pope Francis declared him Venerable in 2019.
Early life and career Mindszenty was born on 29 March 1892 in Csehimindszent, Vas County, Austria-Hungary, to József Pehm and Borbála Kovács. His father was a magistrate.Mindszenty, József Cardinal (1974). Memoirs. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. He attended St Norbert's Premonstratensian High Grammar School in Szombathely, before entering the Szombathely Diocesan Seminary in 1911.
Mindszenty was ordained a priest by Bishop János Mikes on 12 June 1915, the Feast of the Sacred Heart. In 1917, the first of his books, Motherhood, was published. He was arrested by Mihály Károlyi's progressive government on 9 February 1919 for speaking out against its 'socialist policies', then rearrested by the communist Béla Kun government on 31 July that year.Mindszenty, József Cardinal. Memoirs. pp. 3–8. 1974. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
In 1939, Mindszenty urged his followers to vote against the Arrow Cross Party. In 1940, he published a pamphlet, "The Green Communism", in which he characterized the Hungarian Nyilas Nazi Movement as diabolic and as evil as the communists. Green was the color of the Nyilas uniform.Paksy, pp. 213–215.
In 1941, during a Magyarization campaign amongst Germans living in Hungary, he adopted his new Hungarian name of Mindszenty, part of his home village's name. On 25 March 1944, he was consecrated Bishop of Veszprém. Mindszenty organized a letter to the Nazi authorities urging them not to fight in Western Hungary; he also protested to Miklós Horthy in favor of converted Jews. After Horthy was overthrown, Mindszenty was arrested on 27 November 1944 for his opposition to the Arrow Cross government's plan to quarter soldiers in parts of his official palace. In April 1945, with the Arrow Cross puppet state collapsing, Mindszenty was released from house arrest at a church in Sopron.
Church leader and opposition to communism Following the fall of the Kingdom of Hungary, Mindszenty was disappointed, as "deep down in his soul he remained a monarchist to the end of his life." On 15 September 1945, Mindszenty was appointed Primate of Hungary and Archbishop of Esztergom, the seat of the head of the Catholic Church in Hungary. On 21 February 1946, Archbishop Mindszenty was elevated to Cardinal-Priest of Santo Stefano Rotondo by Pope Pius XII, who reportedly told him, "Among these thirty-two you will be the first to suffer the martyrdom symbolized by this red color."Sister M. Pascalina Lehnert (2014), His Humble Servant: Sister M. Pascalina Lehnert's Memoirs of Her Years of Service to Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, St. Augustine's Press. p. 150.
To the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party, Mindszenty was regarded as the archetypal figure of "clerical reaction". He continued to use the traditional title of prince-primate () even after the use of noble and royal titles was outlawed by the 1946 puppet parliament. He contacted the US embassy, asking it to "engage in activities which were simply not diplomatically proper or politically feasible", for which he was rebuked by the embassy. In addition to such contacts, the Party accused him of having "aristocratic attitudes" and attacked his demands for compensation following the state seizure of church-owned farmlands during the Party's campaign to abolish private farm ownership.Chip Berlet, "Cardinal Mindszenty: Heroic Anti-Communist or Anti-Semite or Both?" The St. Louis Journalism Review, Vol. 16, No. 105, April 1988. Because the main source of income for the Church was its agricultural lands, confiscations by the communist government left many Church-run institutions destitute.
Cardinal Mindszenty believed and preached that "The Church asks for no secular protection; it seeks shelter under the protection of God alone".Mindszenty, József Cardinal. Memoirs. p. 34, 1974. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. For this reason, he fought fiercely against the state policy to emancipate the Hungarian educational system from Church control by seizing parochial schools.
In 1948, religious orders were banned by the government. Soon after, the communist dictator in Hungary, Mátyás Rákosi accused the Cardinal and the Catholic Church of being both "the largest landowner in Hungary" and "a reactionary force in our country, supporting the monarchy and later the fascist dictatorship of Admiral Horthy". These, Rákosi claimed, were the only reasons for Mindszenty's opposition to the Party's policy of land confiscation.George Seldes (1987), Witness to a Century: Encounters with the Noted, the Notorious, and the Three SOBs, Ballantine Books, New York. pp. 414–16.
On 26 December 1948, Cardinal Mindszenty was arrested and accused of treason, conspiracy, and other offences against the new Hungarian People's Republic. Shortly before his arrest, he wrote a note to the effect that he had not been involved in any conspiracy and that any confession he might make would be the result of duress. While imprisoned, Mindszenty was repeatedly hit with rubber truncheons and subjected to other forms of abuse, until he agreed to confess.Mindszenty, József Cardinal (1974) Memoirs. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Mindszenty's forced confession included the following "admissions": orchestrating the theft of the Crown of Saint Stephen for the sole purpose of crowning Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg as King of Hungary, scheming to overthrow the Party and reestablish capitalism, planning a third World War, and, once it had been won by the Americans, plotting to assume supreme political power himself.Streatfield, Dominic. (2007) Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.
Almost alone among the Western news media, reporter George Seldes, who had previously been expelled from the Soviet Union and fascist Italy for his reporting, believed the allegations against Cardinal Mindszenty. Seldes spent the rest of his life accusing Mindszenty of being a Nazi collaborator, a Holocaust perpetrator, and a virulent antisemite.Seldes (1987), pp. 417–23. In his 1987 memoirs, Seldes wrote, "In 1948 the entire American section of the resident foreign press corps in Hungary implored me to report the facts about Cardinal Mindszenty's collaboration with the Nazis, his part in the deportation of the Jewish population to Hitler's death camps, and also to expose the scores of fraudulent news items coming from outside Hungary, from Vienna, London, Prague, and Rome especially, alleging drugging and torturing of the Cardinal."Seldes (1987), p. 418. Seldes was the only one to dispute that Mindszenty was tortured by the Communists. The Pope and the international community at the time believed that Mindszenty had been tortured. Even at his show trial, the prosecution did not make the charge or provide evidence of antisemitism or Nazi collaboration.
On 3 February 1949, Mindszenty's show trial began. The Cardinal admitted to being involved in a Habsburg restorationist organization which planned to form a government after an American invasion, however he denied hoping for the outbreak of war. He said "we prayed for peace". He accepted the charges of smuggling tens of thousands of dollars into Hungary, and admitted his contacts with Otto von Habsburg and American politicians, but did not admit to willful espionage on behalf of foreign powers. In court, Mindszenty said about the charges: "I do not deny one or another part of it, but I do not subscribe to the conclusion". As he followed the trial, a weeping Pope Pius XII told Sister Pascalina Lehnert, "My words have come true and all I can do is pray; I cannot help him any other way."Lehnert (2014), p. 150. On 8 February, Mindszenty was sentenced to life imprisonment for black marketeering, treason and espionage. The government released a white book, Documents on the Mindszenty Case, containing his alleged confessions and case materials.
New York's Cardinal Spellman was a friend of Mindszenty and gave sermons at St. Patrick's Cathedral in support of the Hungarian."1949 Press Photo Cardinal Spellman Denounce Communists In Mass On Mindszenty Day", Historic Images.
On 12 February 1949, Pope Pius XII announced the excommunication of all persons involved in the trial and conviction of Mindszenty. On 20 February 1949, the Pope addressed a series of questions to a crowd which had gathered in St. Peter's Square to protest the Cardinal's show trial, asking:Do you want a Church that remains silent when She should speak; that diminishes the law of God where She is called to proclaim it loudly, wanting to accommodate it to the will of man? Do you want a Church that departs from the unshakable foundations upon which Christ founded Her, taking the easy way of adapting Herself to the opinion of the day; a Church that is a prey to current trends; a Church that does not condemn the suppression of conscience and does not stand up for the just liberty of the people; a Church that locks Herself up within the four walls of Her temple in unseemly sycophancy, forgetting the divine mission received from Christ: 'Go out the crossroads and preach the people'? Beloved sons and daughters! Spiritual heirs of numberless confessors and martyrs! Is this the Church you venerate and love? Would you recognize in such a Church the features of your Mother? Would you be able to imagine a Successor of St. Peter submitting to such demands?According to Sister Pascalina, who witnessed the rally, "In reply to the Holy Father came a single cry like thunder still ringing in our ears: 'No!'"
In Acerrimo moerore, an apostolic letter to the Hungarian Episcopate, the Pope publicly condemned the Cardinal's conviction and described his tortures..
Over seven years later, on 30 October 1956, in the midst of the Hungarian Revolution, Mindszenty was released from prison. He returned to Budapest the next day, and on 2 November, praised the insurgents. The following day, he made a radio broadcast in favor of recent anti-communist developments.
Confinement at the US embassy
On 4 November 1956, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to restore the communist government, Cardinal Mindszenty sought Imre Nagy's advice, and was granted political asylum at the United States embassy in Budapest. Mindszenty lived there for the next 15 years, unable to leave the grounds, and did not participate in the papal conclaves of 1958 and 1963.
György Aczél, the communist official in charge of all cultural and religious matters in Hungary, felt increasingly uncomfortable about Mindszenty's plight in the late 1960s when the latter fell seriously ill and rumors spread of his impending death. Yet Aczél failed to convince party leader János Kádár that commuting Mindszenty's sentence would create valuable confusion in the Holy See and allow the state to better control the remaining clergy.
Exile