Fraternity-Testvériség, 1957 (35. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1957-02-01 / 2. szám

4

FRATERNITY

by a godless, inhuman ideology. Yet that has been going on systematically and the recent heroic revolt was the reaction of people who could not take it any longer. Most of us, indeed, have been unaware of the real situation in Hungary. Moreover, we have softened our criticism of Communism, and the de-Stalinization that has been going on behind the Iron Curtain these last months has even made us feel that co-existence with the Soviet order was possible and maybe even desirable.

We have been reminded recently, however, that Communism of the Soviet variety, anti-God and by a necessary consequence anti-human, has not changed fundamentally. There is the same subversion of moral and spiritual values, the same denial of human rights, the same ruthless suppression of deviation, the same savage reprisals and the same subjection of people to various forms of inhuman slavery. And having been reminded we have spoken. The courageous and forthright statements of our Ambassador to the United Nations, Henry Cabot Lodge, upheld our best traditions.

The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury have spoken sharply, the latter specifically accusing “the rulers of Russia” of having “expelled God from their belief”, and therefore of being “able to violate and outrage not only all the laws of God but all the hopes and aspirations of the human spirit”, and of having “become to a unique degree the instruments and slaves of the devil.” American Churchmen have also spoken decisively. The World Council of Churches, in a statement signed by its chief officers, has called on “powerful nations to remove the yoke which now prevents other nations and peoples from freely determining their own government and form of society.” President Eisenhower has again exhibited his great leadership, and the United Nations “condemns the violation of the UN charter by the government of the USSR in depriving Hungary of its liberty and independence, and the Hungarian people of the exercise of their fundamental rights.” We have spoken, and that is all that we have done with respect to the problem inside Hungary.

There is a touch of irony in our use of words alone in our endeavor to assist Hungary. The West has spoken “words” of encouragement and consolation to Hungary often before. In the thirteenth century when Asiatic invaders were bent on conquering all Europe, the Magyars blocked their path. Requesting aid, their king reminded Pope Innocent IV that the second Mongolian invasion, in 1253, was a concern of all Europe. The embattled Magyars received no assistance from the West, however, “except words”, a phrase which has become a byword in Hungarian history.

During the fifteenth century there lived one of Hungary’s greatest leaders, John Hunyadi, whom all Europe was to praise. Yet in his campaigns against the Turks the help he received from the West was little more than that given Hungary two centuries earlier. In desperation Hunyadi wrote the Pope: “We are in the sixtieth year of the struggle against the Turk. Until now only one people has turned its arms against the enemy. We only, left alone, have endured the fury of the battle . . . We can either free Europe from the cruel Turk’s invasion, or we can fail for Christianity, earning a crown of martyrdom.”

Passing over the two centuries of Roman Catholic attempts to ex-