Hungarian Heritage Review, 1988 (17. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1988-06-01 / 6. szám
----- J\ profile in Hungarian Courage = THE ORDEAL OF FATHER JOHN A. HAVAS This is a story that seems to come from the Dark Ages and those ancient days when people were persecuted for their beliefs, thrown into horrible prisons and forgotten, or frightfully tortured and put to death. But, unfortunately, it is a tale all too familiar in our own times: persecution for one’s faith or political belief. Farewell to Hungary Some fifty years ago — on August 15, 1936 — a young Jesuit seminarian named John A Havas bade farewell to his family and friends at the railroad station in Budapest. He was embarking upon a journey that was to take him, as a missionary, to distant China. It was also to lead him along paths that would severely test his faith and his human resources. And it was a journey that was to lead him away from his native land forever. A Huge Area — An Enormous Responsibility In 1940, a fateful time for China, Japan and the world, Father Havas, then thirty-three years old, was ordained in Shanghai by the then Bishop Szarvas, and sent to a vast area in China north of the Yellow River in the Province of Hopei, where he was to replace two Jesuit priests who had just died. Not only was the territory vast, but it was under the constant surveillance of the Japanese who occupied the land. In addition, the newly organized Communist forces were struggling against the Japanese, but they also looked with suspicion and hatred at the various foreign religious orders who had been working in China for many years. Father Havas’ mission, then, was filled with many hazards, not the least of which were the great distances he had to travel to service his various missions. In addition, he had to live in primitive conditions, with little in the way of what we regard as the ordinary comforts of life. He was to derive great strength from the faith and helpfulness of his parishioners: life, nevertheless, was exceedingly hard. Imprisonment When, in 1945, Japan surrendered,the Communist forced in China were able to consolidate their powers. Father Havas was forced to move to Shanghai, which was then still an “open city.” It was not long thereafter, however, that Shanghai fell to the Communists, and a policy of harassment, imprisonment and threats began in earnest. And in 1952, while he was attending the birthday party for an old Chinese friend, Father Havas was seized and arrested as an “enemy of the State.” The charges against him — there were fifteen — included those of being a spy, of conspiring to assassinate the Head of State, and of attempting to stir up revolt through his teachings. None of these accusations, of course, was true. The Gates of Hell The true nature of Father Havas’ suffering can best be illustrated by his own words: ‘ ‘It was only on the following morning when a loud piercing, horrifying scream awakened me. .. that the reality of my arrest hit me like a blockbuster. . .Prisoners of all ages.. .groaned, moaned, whimpered, shouted, cried and sobbed.. .It was bedlam. Dins, shrieks, death screams, hysterical wails, the clanging of chains the grinding and gnashing of teeth, the rattling of bones... My nostrils were invaded by a horde of terrible smells that I never imagined existed. Foul, fetid, grisly and nauseating odors, combined with the putrid smell of burned and dead flesh made me sick to my stomach. I almost fainted. ” During his period of incarceration — twenty-two months — Father Havas spent nine months in solitary confinement. His cell was five-by-nine feet in size, with no heat, no light, no blanket and no mattress. He slept on the stone floor, his shoes as his pillow. The price of relief from this torture was the signing of a paper confession to his “crimes”. This step Father Havas refused to take. And for a time of two months he maintained a strict and absolute silence when he was taken before his judges. Freedom Finally, on May 13, 1954, Father Havas was released from his prison. He was so covered with sores and scars that his guards refused to touch him, even with their rifle butts, and three days after his release, he arrived in Hong Kong, filthy, ragged and weak — but free. After a period of recuperation, Father Havas was sent to Vancouver, British Columbia, from which point he was ordered to the United States. He was given teaching assignments at the McQuade High School in Rochester, New York and at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, New Jersey. Now Father Havas is at the Loyola House of Retreats in Morristown, New Jersey, where he gives private retreats as he has done for the past thirty years in Canada and the United States. Father John A. Havas bears witness to the kind of spiritual strength and determination that grace the pages of human history. 10 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW JUNE 1988
