{"id":1999159,"date":"2023-08-13T05:35:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T09:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-captive-cardinal\/"},"modified":"2023-08-13T05:41:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T09:41:06","slug":"the-captive-cardinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-captive-cardinal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cardinal in Captivity."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">8<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-captive-cardinal%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1999159&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<blockquote>\n<h2>REVIEW: \u2018Memoirs\u2019 by\u200d J\u00f3zsef Cardinal Mindszenty<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<p>      \u200b  J\u00f3zsef Cardinal \u200cMindszenty (Wikimedia Commons)<br \/>\n    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Faith requires \u200bnot only inner assent to certain truths,\u200b but living\u2062 those\u200c truths \u200din community\u200c with others.\u2064 This\u200c kind of communal living creates a history that one looks to \u200dfor guidance\u2014and for the \u2063joy of remembrance and communion with the past. In other words, to be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scientists-create-the-first-synthetic-embryos\/\" title=\"Scientists Create The First Synthetic Embryos\">human requires<\/a> a historical \u200bawareness and connection.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the totalitarian movements of the 20th century each sought to create a new kind of being\u2014one that could fully escape any connection to the past. But such \u2064an escape would require destruction. For J\u00f3zsef \u2063Cardinal Mindszenty\u2014twice imprisoned by \u2064the Communists and once by \u2063the Nazis in \u200bhis native Hungary\u2014this was the ground where the battle with the two \u2064totalitarianisms \u200dneeded to be joined. As he put it in his installation address (as archbishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary)\u200b on September 16, 1945: &#8220;I wish \u200cto be the conscience of my people. \u2026 Contrary to the errors that \u200bare now springing up, I proclaim to my people and my nation\u2062 the eternal truths. I want to resurrect the sanctified tradition of our people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>J\u00f3zsef Cardinal Mindszenty first published his memoirs \u2064in German and \u2064English \u2064in 1974. They were soon translated\u200b into many languages.\u200c When \u2063the book\u2019s \u200dEnglish language publisher MacMillan was subsumed under another larger\u200b publishing house, <em>Memoirs<\/em> fell out of \u200cprint. The scholar \u2063Daniel J. Mahoney, who penned an informative and \u200deloquent introduction for this handsome new edition by Ignatius Press,\u2063 calls Mindszenty one of the &#8220;antitotalitarian titans\u200b of the twentieth century,&#8221; and readers \u200dwill \u2062have difficulty\u2062 disagreeing with that assessment.<\/p>\n<p>Readers with\u2062 religious, political,\u2062 and historical interests will find the book a feast. At\u200d its center \u2063is Mindszenty\u2019s show trial and subsequent eight-year imprisonment under the newly\u2063 solidified\u200d Communist regime. He\u200d was savagely beaten, confined to a solitary cell, and at\u200c one point\u200c lost\u2063 nearly\u200b half his body weight. We are given meditations on prison\u200b dreams, convict humor, haircuts, food, and the soul-shattering \u200cstresses of monotony and loneliness. Mindszenty of course \u2062drew \u200bon his deep faith\u200d to\u200d survive and maintain\u200d his\u200c dignity. \u200d&#8221;My religious life certainly suffered from my surroundings, but it was not destroyed,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;There was a great deal I lacked that I\u200b had earlier possessed, but many of my \u2063religious exercises became\u200d all \u2063the more intensive.&#8221; \u200bHis life of prayer flourished. Mindszenty is careful \u2062to acknowledge that while prison can lead to an intense spirituality, it can also \u2062&#8221;lead\u2064 men away\u2063 from God.&#8221; Tending \u2064to one\u2019s soul in such circumstances is certainly not\u200b automatic, but with attentiveness and devotion,\u200d spiritual growth is possible. He \u200cquotes Dostoyevsky\u2019s observation about prison in Siberia: &#8220;In prison, too, one \u200bcan lead a great\u2062 life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If the book were only this \u200bshort prison diary, we would have a spiritual\u2064 classic. Mindszenty \u2064delivers much\u200c more. He is an acute \u200banalyst of Communist ideology\u2014he brings\u2062 a philosophic mind\u200c to elucidate \u2064its core. And he spends much \u2064time and attention on Communism as a political movement: how it attains \u2064power \u200dthrough force\u2064 and fraud,\u200c how it spreads its message and \u200dgains followers, and how\u2062 it maintains\u200b its dominance once \u2063in power. The Hungarian\u200c history here is not well-known\u2062 and has its commonalities\u2063 and differences with other countries that suffered \u200bunder the\u200c Communist yoke. The infiltration and destruction of the multiparty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/can-biden-help-unite-america\/\" title=\"Can Biden Help Unite America?\">political system<\/a> by the Communists in the \u200bpostwar years is a fascinating tale. Parts of this story will \u200bbe familiar to \u200csome with knowledge \u2062of Communist tactics but the details in the Hungarian case\u200c are arresting nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p>Mindszenty highlights the importance of a \u200blaw that \u2064was passed in March 1946\u2014before the Communist Party had solidified its dominance of the\u200c political system. This so-called executioner\u2019s law criminalized\u200c actions that were deemed \u2063a threat to\u200b public order. During the summer of 1946 the &#8220;murder&#8221; of a Russian soldier\u2064 was blamed on a Catholic youth organization and then used as a pretext for the dissolution \u200dof all \u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gabriella-hoffman-new-ca-gun-control-bill-already-displacing-youth-from-shooting-sports-hunting\/\" title=\"Gabriella Hoffman: New CA Gun Control Bill Already Displacing Youth from Shooting Sports, Hunting\">youth organizations<\/a>.\u2064 The Communist\u200d Party pushed through a new electoral law in June 1947 that led to\u2064 the disenfranchisement of nearly a million voters and the neutralization of \u2063<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/corporate-medias-coverage-of-the-debt-limit-fight-is-intolerably-dishonest\/\" title=\"Media's debt-limit coverage is dishonest.\">competing political parties<\/a>. The steady,\u200b deliberate destruction of religious education is also detailed in the <em>Memoirs<\/em>, culminating in the June 1948 \u2062law nationalizing close to 5,000\u200b schools. Mindszenty gives a vivid, unvarnished \u200caccount of the Communist path\u200d to dominance.\u200b It is a playbook worth confronting for anyone interested in thinking about how political freedom can be lost.<\/p>\n<p>Ignorance, credulity, \u200dand\u2062 na\u00efvet\u00e9 all play crucial\u200d roles in the rise of Communism according to Mindszenty. Sympathizers who are initially won over by social works of the party\u2062 find \u200dthemselves increasingly susceptible \u2064to the grand promises \u2063of \u2063the ideology. &#8220;Drawing\u200d on the experience of a century,&#8221; writes Mindszenty, &#8220;the spokesmen\u200c of Communism have learned the nature of human wishful thinking and turn \u2063it \u2063to good\u2063 account.&#8221; In\u200d other instances, when the \u2062path \u2062necessary to the grand promises might prove unpalatable for many, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-captive-cardinal\/\" title=\"The Cardinal in Captivity.\">party members craftily conceal<\/a> their plans\u200d and speak the language of Western liberal democracy, emphasizing rights and freedoms. \u2063But Mindszenty does not spare readers from what he concludes is the hard truth about the success of Communist\u200d domination: &#8220;The Communist ideology\u2063 can achieve\u200d lasting effects only\u200d where the religious foundations of a nation have\u200c been \u2064undermined so that\u200d reason, faith in God, and morality \u2064do not\u2062 offer\u200c sufficient resistance to such ideas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Memoirs<\/em> concludes with a riveting chapter \u2064on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and one on Mindszenty\u2019s asylum in\u200c the American embassy in Budapest. The volume also \u2063includes over\u2064 80 pages of \u200bcontemporaneous letters, sermons, radio addresses, and the like, which the editors\u200c have wisely pegged to \u2062passages in the body of the\u200d <em>Memoirs<\/em>. \u200cLet\u2019s hope this\u2064 new\u2064 edition reestablishes it as \u2062an anti-totalitarian classic with a\u200d place on the shelf alongside Solzhenitsyn\u2019s <em>Gulag Archipelago<\/em>, Whittaker Chambers\u2019s <em>Witness<\/em>, and Czeslaw Milosz\u2019s <em>The Captive Mind<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Memoirs<\/em><br \/>  by\u2064 J\u00f3zsef Cardinal Mindszenty<br \/> \u2064 Ignatius Press, 477 pp., $22.95<\/p>\n<p><em>Flagg Taylor, a professor in the department of\u2064 political science\u200b at Skidmore College, was editor, most recently, of <\/em>The Long\u200d Night of the Watchman: Essays by V\u00e1clav Benda, 1977-1989<em>, and hosts the <\/em>Enduring Interest Podcast<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>, faith is not just a personal belief, but a shared experience that shapes our lives and connects us to our history. J\u00f3zsef Cardinal Mindszenty&#8217;s memoirs beautifully capture the essence of this communal faith, reminding us of the importance of living our beliefs and finding solace in the memories of those who came before us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1345,"featured_media":1999160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1999159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1999159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1999160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1999159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1999159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1999159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}