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PAGE 3—October 11,1973
Exclusive Interview With Cardinal Mindszenty
BY JERRY FILTEAU
NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (NC) -- Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, exiled primate of
Hungary, in an exclusive interview with NC News here spoke of his memoirs, his
imprisonment in Hungary, and his wish that St. Stephen’s crown, the symbol of
authority in Hungary, be preserved for “all Hungarians.”
The aging prelate was bent with his 81 years, many in prison or exile, but his voice
was strong and lively, and his piercing blue eyes commanded attention as he spoke.
When asked about the “amnesty” granted by the current “Hungarian government”
shortly after his departure to Rome in September, 1971, the cardinal interrupted the
question and, switching from his native Hungarian he bypassed the interpreter and
spoke vehemently in English:
“Hungarian ‘government’ does not exist! There is no constitution, and government
is belonging to the constitution!”
Asked if the term “regime” would be more appropriate, he replied again in English,
“It is good. ‘Regime’ ... it is good.”
The cardinal spoke of his seven years in solitary confinement before he was freed in
the 1956 uprising as “not just imprisonment, but the worst kind of imprisonment, the
very worst kind.”
The greatest need for Catholics in Hungary today, he said, is “human rights and
religious freedom.”
“All the bad things that have happened all over the world” since his trial and
imprisonment, he said, “prove that my position was right.”
Talking about St. Stephen’s crown, the aging prelate spoke passionately of the
“one-and-a-half million Hungarians” who for one reason or another live outside the
present borders of Hungary.
The crown, which dates back to the year 1000, in the reign of St. Stephen, first king
of Hungary, has been held in the United States, reportedly in a military fort, since the
end of World War II.
Cardinal Mindszenty confirmed reports that he has written to President Nixon
asking the United States not to return the crown to the present Hungarian regime.
“I have personally written several times to the President, both from my asylum in
the embassy and since,” he said. When the 1956 uprising in Hungary was crushed, the
cardinal, who had been freed from prison by the revolutionaries, fled to the American
embassy in Budapest, where he remained until he left Hungary in 1971.
The cardinal thanked “both houses of Congress . . . for what they have done on
behalf of Hungary with respect to the crown,” a reference to numerous statements by
congressmen opposing the return of the crown to Hungary at this time.
He said he has “received several assurances from persons, high officials who were
writing on behalf of the President, at his authorization -- they may have been from the
White House or the State Department -- which have expressed the sense that the
United States position has not changed as regards the crown.
“The crown belongs to all Hungarians,” he said, “and to speak of returning the
crown to one part of Hungary, which is within its present tranquil frontiers, is to deny
the right to the crown of Hungarians who live outside these frontiers, who have been
artifically disjointed from Hungarian territory.”
He said he was referring “to those territories which are neighboring Hungary but do
not belong to Hungary proper today, and to the one-and-a-half million Hungarians all
around the world, who also have a right to this crown.
“Especially,” he said, “to the one-and-a-half million Hungarians outside the
boundaries -- which comprise some of the best elements of the intelligentsia and
intellectuals, but also from all walks of life and social sectors. They are the ones who
perhaps, because they live in freedom, most appreciate the historical significance of
Hungary and the historical significance of the crown.
“One of the greatest Hungarians, Istvan Szechenyi, 19th century political leader, has
said that ‘blind is the nation which lacks cultured minds.’”
Originally scheduled to make an extensive tour through the United States this year,
the Hungarian primate later cancelled the trip but kept a promise he had made to visit
New Brunswick, N.J., for the dedication of St. Ladislaus Roman Catholic Church, a
church for Hungarians in the area.
He said he would make a full visit to the United States next year, “if God is
willing.”
Of the need for priests in Hungary, he said, “This is the internal affair of the priests
and of the Church. And we do no ask this from the authorities, because they are
diminishing rather than increasing the number of priests.”
He described the situation in Hungary since he has left as “deteriorated,” and said
this was also true of the “outside world.”
“Indeed, there are rumors that say there is some changes in this position,” Cardinal
Mindszenty continued. “But I would not presume that of the leaders of the United
States.”
The Hungarian primate made an eloquent plea that the corwn should not be
returned to the present Hungarian regime.
One of the reasons for cancelling this year’s trip, he said, is that he is working now
on his memoirs.
Speaking of his right to publish his memoirs, the cardinal said, “I build on a trust in
human rights -- which are also my rights. If I have no human rights, no one else has
human rights either.”
BY ECONOMIST
Vouchers Seen As Way
To Bring School Reform
CARDINAL AT DEDICATION -- A crowd fills the blesses the congregation inside (lower left). Holding a
newly named Cardinal Mindszenty square in New microphone for him is Msgr. Tibor Meszaros, his
Brunswick, N.J. to hear the cardinal speak to them. A personal secretary. At right is Msgr. Bela Ispanky,
banner welcomes him to the city. The cardinal (lower another secretary and chaplain to Hungarians in
right) speaks in front of St. Ladislaus Church and England. (NC Photo by John Szostak)
Bishops Advised to Delay Joining Council
NEW YORK (NC) - A leading
economist has proposed vouchers as
“the way to achieve real reform in
schooling” and has suggested that they
may be a constitutional way of aiding
parents who send their children to
nonpublic shcools.
Explaining “The Voucher Idea” in an
article in The New York Times
magazine, Dr. Milton Friedman,
professor of economics at the University
of Chicago, said:
“The City of New York now spends
about $1,500 per year for every child
enrolled at public elementary and
secondary schools. Parents who send
their child to a private school therefore
save the dty about $1,500. But they get
no benefit from doing so. The key
reform would be for the dty to give
such parents a voucher for $1,500 to
pay for schooling for their child (and
for no other purpose). This would not
relieve them of the bmden of taxes; it
would simply give parents a choice of
the form in which they take the
schooling that the city has obligated
itself to provide.”
Friedman’s basic contention is that
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul
VI said he thinks the coming Holy Year
will be an “occasion for new studies and
new undertakings” in the field of social
justice.
FOUNDER OF LOS
MUCHACHOS ~ Father Jesus
Silva is the founder of the Boys’
Town of Spain and its Los
Muchachos circus now touring the
United States. Starting with a
band of 14 boys whom he put up
at his parents’ home when he was
a seminarian, Father Silva has
formed a City of Boys which
includes 2,000 youngsters living
on a 30 acre site at Bemposta,
Spain. (NC Photo)
competition among schools is necessary
for genuine educational reform. If there
is competition, he maintained, parents
will send their children to the schools
that do the best job of educating them.
But under present circumstances, there
is no competition, because public
schools have an economic advantage,
providing their educational services free
of charge.
In his discussion of problems facing
the voucher plan, Friedman considered
first the church-state issue. Recalling
last June’s Supreme Court decisions
striking down New York and
Pennsylvania laws that provided for
reimbursing parents for part of the
tuition paid to nonpublic elementary
and secondary schools, the economist
said “the tuition-reimbursement plans
appear to be at least kissing cousins of
the voucher plan that I have outlined.
“However, as I read the decisions,
two differences might lead the Court to
rule favorably on a full-fledged voucher
plan: The voucher plan would apply to
all parents, not simply those with
children in nonpublic schools; and it
would grant the same sum to all parents
not, as in the particular
tuition-reimbursement plans struck
“Clearly the Holy Year is meant to be
a highly religious event,” he told a
general audience Oct. 3. “During that
period religion, steeped in intense
spiritual awareness and deeply pious
observations, will take command in our
souls.
“In such a singular and stimulating
circumstance we must feel ourselves to
be Christians, pervaded by the faith and
attentive to the urgings of the Spirit.
“And for that very reason the faith
must exercise over us a fresh and
powerful stimulus for the cause of
justice in the world.
“This effect is none other than the
realization of the inevitable and
magnificent link between the love of
God, the first and all-embracing
command offered to the human being,
and the love of neighbor. The second
precept flows from the first and
necessarily accompanies it.”
The pope proceeded to say that
justice is born of love.
“This is not merely a theoretical
truth. It is a fruitful truth of our
conception of society . ..
“It sets apart our way of being, of
thinking and of working from those
doctrinal, political and social systems
which derive the principles of law and
of social duty, that is, of justice, from
hatred, from self-interest, from mere
philanthropic sympathy, from the
prevailing winds of public opinion.”
Pope Paul has already opened
preparations for the Holy Year in local
churches around the world. It reaches
its climax in Rome at the end of 1975.
down, a sum much smaller than the
per-pupil cost (a point that Justice
(Lewis F.) Powell referred to explicityly
in the majority decision).”
In any case, Friedman said, the Court
would accept a voucher plan that
excluded church-related schools. He
suggested that church-related schools
could qualify for participation in such a
plan “by subdividing themselves into
two parts: a secular part reorganized as
an independent school eligible for
vouchers, and a religious part
reorganized as an after-school or Sunday
activity paid for directly by parents or
church funds.
“The constitutional issue will have to
be settled by the courts,” Friedman
continued. “But it is worth emphasizing
(Chief) Justice (Warren) Burger’s point
that the vouchers would go to parents
not to schools. Under the G.I. Bill,
veterans are free to attend Catholic or
other religious colleges, and, so far as I
know, no First-Amendment issue has
ever been raised. Recipients of Social
Security and welfare payments are free
to contribute to churches from their
government subsidies, with no
First-Amendment question being
asked.”
Friedman contended that the present
economic penalization of parents who
send their children to nonpublic schools
“abridges the religious freedom of
parents who do not accept the liberal,
humanistic religion of the public
schools, yet, because of the penalty, are
impelled to send their children to public
schools.”
Friedman also argued that the
voucher plan would provide
competition for parochial schools, too,
and eliminate “their privileged position
as the only effective alternative to
public schools for most people.”
Friedman favors vouchers that could
be used to pay for education in any
school that meets minimum state
requirements, whether the school is
public or private, sectarian or
nonsectarian.
A more limited kind of voucher plan
has been studied and, in at least one
case, implemented.
Originally, five public school districts
received grants from the Office of
Economic Opportunity to study the
feasibility of the voucher plan. Gary,
Ind., Rockland, Me.; San Francisco and
Seattle have all withdrawn from the
proposed experiments.
The Alum Rock Union Elementary
School District in San Jose, Cal. has
completed the first year of its voucher
plan and has received another $4.6
million to carry the program to June,
1975.
The Alum Rock experiment is a
“regulated” voucher plan: it requires
open admissions to seven of the
district’s 24 public schools, provides
extra money to poor children for
compensatory education, and forbids
parents to supplement vouchers with
their own money. It is not a complete
test of the voucher concept because the
state has not passed legislation that
would allow nonpublic schools to
participate.
New Hampshire received a $100,000
grant from OEO to study the feasibility
of conducting a voucher experiment in
several school districts.
WASHINGTON (NC) - A committee
of the U.S. bishops’ Advisory Council
has recommended “postponement” of a
decision on Catholic membership in the
National Council of Churches.
A spokesman for the U.S. Catholic
Conference told NC News that the
committee has produced a “significant
report.” He added however, that
suggestions not to join the NCC should
not be taken to mean that the cause for
ecumenism has been slowed. He said
that ecumenists are aware there is more
to ecumenism than seeking membership
into an organization.
NC News Service was informed that
the committee had sought counsel of
several USCC offices regarding the
feasibility of membership of the USCC
and the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops (NCCB) in the National Council
of Churches.
The USCC offices were generally in
favor of postponing membership in the
NCC, at least for the triennium that
began Jan. 1, 1973, a USCC spokesman
told NC News Service.
The report was passed on by the
Advisory Council to the NCCB
Administrative Committee which has
taken no formal action, Bishop James S.
Rausch USCC/NCCB general secretary,
said. 1
The U.S. Bishops will not take any
formal action on the question of joining
the NCC until the NCCB Ecumenical
and Interreligious Affairs Committee
makes a final report to the bishops.
Bishop Rausch, said that the
committee of the Advisory Council
noted that “the importance of the
decision concerning membership
demands a much more thorough
consideration than the Catholic Church
has hitherto received.”
Bishop Rausch said the committee
went on to urge that the matter btf
“systematically studied” by diocesan
pastoral councils.
Holy Year Is Giving
Social Justice Push