Krisztián Ungváry

The Kádár Regime and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy

 

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Clearly, campaigns against the Churches, in particular against the Catholic Church, were a top priority. If we consider the number of subjects under surveillance, then it was here that the Interior Ministry mobilised the greatest number of agents in relative terms. By 1977, they were employing just four agents to keep tabs on members of the former "ruling classes" (i.e. aristocrats and financial tycoons); a total of 489 agents to keep an eye on the tens of thousands kept under observation under the heading of Youth Protection; 485 for the entire cultural domain; but as many as 421 persons were engaged6 in the relatively easily monitored sphere of Church affairs. During the Rákosi dictatorship of the early Fifties and the first few years after 1956 when János Kádár was striving to consolidate his hold on power, the Vatican was not prepared to yield an inch on its principles, and accordingly urged priests to resist rather than buckle under. Pius XII, for example, excommunicated Miklós Beresztóczy, Richárd Horváth and

Imre Várkonyi1 who, as "peace priests", became members of parliament. The majority of the Catholic clergy stood firm and many bishops were imprisoned. The state employed a number of agencies to undermine the Churches. Within the State Security Office, the Internal Security Directorate's Department III/III-1, which dealt specifically with Hungarian Church affairs, collaborated closely with the Intelligence Directorate's Department III/I-4, which had responsibility for Israel, the Vatican and affairs of émigré Church officials.2 The State Office for Religious Affairs (Állami Egyházügyi Hivatal) was established in 1950.3 The ÁEH had offices in Budapest and in every county; its operatives conveyed the will of the Party (and hence of the State Security Office) to the clergy. The head of the ÁEH was in weekly contact with the heads of the aforementioned departments and himself held the rank of colonel in one of the security services.

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Coming as it did in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, an agreement signed by the Hungarian state and the Vatican on 15 September 1964 signalled a radical change: it meant that the Church was willing to accept the Hungarian state's right of advowson; that is to say, the Church could appoint to vacant bishoprics only persons whose nomination had received the prior approval of the state. Basically this agreement amounted to the Vatican abandoning the hierarchy behind the Iron Curtain. All that the Vatican got in return was a formal promise that the Hungarian state would not put administrative obstacles in the way of the operation of existing Church institutions. Evaluation of the Vatican's East European policy is hampered by the fact that those who were responsible for it, such as Cardinals Casaroli and Sodano, remained in high-ranking posts even after 1989. Casaroli only died in 1998 (his memoirs were published shortly afterwards4) and Sodano retired in 2006. The Vatican for its part has a 70-year rule governing the confidentiality of papers in its archives, which means that documents relating to the 1964 agreement are not accessible to scholars. Casaroli's aforementioned memoirs contain no selfcriticism whatever. Most peculiarly, in 1998 the Vatican asked the Hungarian government to classify these documents for a further 75 years and the government complied.5 Supporters of the agreement argue that the very existence of the Church in Hungary was under threat. Most of the episcopal and archiepiscopal sees were vacant and Bishops József Pétery and Bertalan Badalik were living under house arrest in the village of Hejce. In the absence of an agreement,

administrators appointed by the state were running dioceses. Casaroli claims that the "collapse of the Church would have been inevitable in the absence of an agreement." 6 Gábor Adriányi, who is an internationally recognised authority on the subject, has come to a different conclusion. He reckons that the agreement resulted in the Hungarian Roman Catholic Church "sinking to the lowest point in its thousand-year history."7 Although neither the GDR nor Romania entered into agreements of this kind with the Vatican, the Church did not founder there. In the case of Czechoslovakia, the Vatican in 1966 was unwilling to enter into an understanding on the same conditions as in Hungary, despite the fact that there were 13 vacant episcopal sees. Finally, in 1973, the Vatican appointed four bishops who had been proposed by the state, but this did not silence critical voices within the Czech and the Slovak Churches. In fact, it enabled the Catholic Church to play a leading role in the Czechoslovak 'Velvet' revolution of 1989.8 Not a single socialist state managed to liquidate the Churches completely. Casaroli fails to acknowledge that, as a result of the 1964 agreement, it was the earlier administrators and/or security service plants who were appointed bishop and archbishop (of the five appointees three were already working as recruited agents and another was a candidate agent).9 The assertions that Casaroli makes regarding the agreement are also at odds with the Holy See's official position. In 1972 the Vatican itself acknowledged that it did not regard the model satisfactory for other Eastern European countries, which of course is precisely why it did not enter into such an agreement with Czechoslovakia.

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With the agreement signed, and under circumstances that only grew more favourable as time wore on, Hungary's security services could safely go about the business of cowing the Church. Mindszenty's successor as Archbishop of Esztergom, László Cardinal Lékai, who was appointed in 1974, proved to be a willing tool in the hands of the ÁEH. By the early 1970s, even before he came on the scene, the security services could have total confidence that the Hungarian Catholic hierarchy would carry out their wishes as the balance of power was continually shifting in their favour. The history of the illegal Basilian monastic order of the Byzantine-Rite Catholic Church provides an example of this, when the matter of "recruitment" into the order became the object of widespread inquiries launched by the security services. Bertalan Dudás, the provincial, and those close to him did indeed maintain contacts with 33 monks of the Basilian order and were engaged in proselytising, despite the fact that their order had officially been disbanded. The Interior Ministry felt it was sufficient to "signal" the matter and to close the case after those concerned had been given a police warning. They also hoped that a bishop of the Hungarian Byzantine-Rite Catholics, whom they failed to recruit as an agent, could at least be held in check by making it clear that any failure to toe the line on his part would mean having to reckon on a wave of arrests. Their hope was that the bishop himself would be willing to take on the disciplining of the miscreant members of his flock, so that no overt accusations would be necessary in the first place. According to a note by Department III/III's agency in Szabolcs County: "our goal was that this gesture should force Bishop [Miklós] Dudás [i.e. Bertalan Dudás's elder brother] towards greater loyalty [sic!]."10 This strategy worked in part; the intimidated bishop "did not obstruct the hierarchy passing decisions of a progressive leaning", or in other words he did not set himself up against his fellowbishops, the majority of them agents, because he feared that those implicated in the affair of the Basilian order might be punished more severely. From another angle, however, the security services miscalculated, as the bishop did not reproach his flock for becoming involved with an illegal order, only for doing so without due caution. It is striking, though, that for the security service it was worthwhile to refrain from "effecting" the matter (i.e. taking legal action) because it was able to take care of everything much more effectively through the hierarchy. The action taken against András Pelle, a curate in the parish of Újszeged, gives a vivid illustration. Agent "Kerekes", who had reported on the illegal religious instruction being provided by Pelle,11 on 8 March 1972 was given the task by his handler of inducing Udvardy to prohibit Pelle from undertaking this clandestine pastoral work and either to have him posted away from Szeged or retire from the priesthood-a measure that the intimidated bishop duly took. The comment appended to the report is instructive: Comment: The measures to be taken by the bishop set in motion the disruption of Pelle's activity. The measures taken from above by the Church authority will at the same time have a restraining force not just on Pelle but the other RC priests who are acting in an overzealous and irregular manner (e.g. László Galgóczi, Antal Lotz, etc.). It will serve as a prelude to a planned series of actions for bringing further discredit on A. Pelle, which the Church authorities too will accept as being the state of things.12 By the time of a 1978 conference of county police chiefs only "external disruption" was being blamed as the source for any "hostile activity" by the Church: To all appearances, the change in imperialist tactics and the continued positive changes in the Churches at home favouring loyal forces [my italics] are forcing reactionary Church personalities at home and abroad to focus on the growth of "oppositional sentiments" within the Church.

The oppositional activities of Church reactionaries are fundamentally under the ideological direction and influence of reactionary forces abroad. They have set at the centre of their attack the aim of disturbing settled state and Church relations and preventing their further improvement.13 In 1979 Szilveszter Harangozó, at the time head of the Internal Protection Directorate III/III, gave the following appraisal of "Church reactionaries" to the conference of police chiefs: In the overwhelming majority of cases their suppression is being realised by employing political means, with the collaboration of loyal forces and fundamentally as an internal matter for the Churches. We have also initiated our state security measures within this framework. We are pursuing our state security work along three main lines: - the uncovering and prevention of the plans and activities of external and internal reactionary forces on the basis of a broad-based and continuous co-ordination of the proper organs; - the protection and development of the loyal forces of the Churches and their support by operative means against reactionary elements; - the support by operative methods of the international activities of loyal members of the Churches.14 Harangozó went on to stress that "reactionaries" were not able to create a significant base in clerical or lay circles. They could not produce tensions over the question of human rights and freedom of religion such that these would grow into a significant socio-political problem. We have successfully obstructed them in the training of 'standard-bearers', or leading personalities, capable of uniting their forces.15 Harangozó's positive evaluation is in stark contrast with the dramatic tone of his report on oppositional activity, though in 1979 it was of little significance in Hungary. It is obvious that state security organs were by and large satisfied with the Churches. Harangozó's sketch of the need to protect the "present loyal Church hierarchy" gives food for thought.16 Though he does not specify anyone, it is obvious that what he means is that they had used state security devices to "defend" traitors within the Church against those who were critical of them in the community of the faithful. The collaboration also worked superbly in influencing their target. In the case of the Regnum Marianum Community and the Bokor ("Bush") movement success was achieved in proving to the leaders of the domestic Churches the splitting and anti-Church nature of these groups. On this basis, it has been possible to activate loyal forces to put their foot down against them. As a result, uncertainty and strong signs of disintegration can be observed in those circles.17 In other words, by convincing the Catholic hierarchy that the operations of the Regnum Marianum and Bokor groups were harmful, the Church itself took the administrative steps needed to suppress their activities. What makes this all the sadder is that the persecution of Regnum Marianum and Bokor was not demanded by the Vatican. As this demonstrates, Hungary's state security agencies had every reason to believe that they could depend on "loyal forces", this being shorthand for their agents and the peace priests, with the majority of the bishops being part of their informer network and, willingly or unwillingly, playing their role.

¹ Imre Várkonyi (1916-83), a prior, canon, rector of the Theological College at Szeged (1953-58), then chairman of Actio Catholica, was from 1956 a part of the informer network, under the codename "Rózsa", and from 1963 a member of parliament.

² See the standing orders for Directorate III/III at www.th.hu/forrasok/ugyrend_3.doc, p. 12, section VI. 17.e.

³ Act 24/1957 mandated prior approval by the ÁEH of all appointments to the post of dean or higher; in 1971 it was modified so as to give it the right to approve retrospectively.

⁴ Agostino Casaroli: Il martirio della pazienza: la Santa Sede e i paesi communisti, 1963-89. Einaudi, 2000. This has not been translated into English but there is a Hungarian edition under the title A türelem vértanúsága. A szentszék és a kommunista államok (1963-1989). [The Martyrdom of Patience. The Holy See and the Communist States (1963-1989)]. Budapest, Szent István Társulat, 2001.

⁵ Adriányi, op. cit., p. 46, footnote 4.

⁶ Casaroli: A türelem vértanúsága, p. 125.

⁷ Adriányi, op. cit., p. 192.

⁸ Otto Mádr: Wie die Kirche nicht stirbt. Zeugnis aus bedrängten Zeiten der tschechischen Kirche. Leipzig, 1993, pp. 17-20; Jan Stribrny: "Tschechoslowakei," in: Walter Kasper (ed.): Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 10th edn, Freiburg, Basel, Rome & Vienna, 2001, vol. 10, pp. 279-282.

⁹ The four in question were Bishops Brezanóczy, Ijjas, Bánk and Cserháti; only Bishop József Winkler was not an agent.

¹⁰ Frigyes Kahler, Kis állambiztonsági könyv [Concise Reader on State Security], vol. 3, p. 76. [n.d.].

¹¹ ÁSZTL M-36278/1, pp. 7-13, 24-26 & 35-42.

¹² ÁSZTL M-36278/1, 8 March 1972 report of "Kerekes".

¹³ MOL XIX-b-1-x, box 30, 10-36/6-1978, Conference of county police chiefs, 30 June 1978; state security work and internal opposition, pp. 13-14.

¹⁴ MOL XIX-b-1-x, box 32, 10-38/7-1979, Conference of county police chiefs, the struggle against Church reaction, pp. 1-2.

¹⁵ Idem, p. 2.

¹⁶ Idem, p. 8.

¹⁷ Idem, p. 12.

 

Krisztián Ungváry
is a historian whose main field is twentieth century political and military history. He is the author of The Siege of Budapest (Tauris, London, 2003; New York, Yale University Press, 2005, with a foreword by John Lukacs) which has also appeared in German. (Hungarian edition 1998.)