Munich (kath.net/KIN) Father Werenfried van Straaten, founder of the worldwide Catholic assistance organization "Kirche in Not" [Church in Need] preached free of charge on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the year about the popular resistance against the Soviet occupation of Hungary began on 23. October 1956. This talk was related to the fate of the Hungarian József Cardinal Mindszenty and his example for today.
Father Werenfried knew Mindszenty personally and visited him during the uprising on the 30th of October 1956. The talk is only available now in a CD recorded on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of +Mindszenty's death in 1985 and praised him as a "priceless Hungarian grain of wheat".
The former Primate of Hungary is said to have "taken a cross on himself such as hardly any other Cardinal had to endure", said Father Werenfried. After his incarceration by the Communist Regime on the 26th of December 1948, he was tortured for a week. "On nights he was beaten with a rubber truncheon and by day he was prevented from sleeping", said Werenfried. "So he was destroyed as a man, and appeared through the peep-hole in the door as one dead."
After his release +Mindszenty finally, as Werenfried criticized, became an "was sacrificed as an object of exchange in Ostpolitik to the illusion of the diplomats ." "He had to leave his fatherland and was maltreated exactly as God's own son, who took the form of a slave and was obedient even unto death on the Cross." That a "spiritual giant like Cardinal Mindszenty" was subject to this obedience, is a sign of his great holiness, stressed Father Werenfried and appealed to his listeners, never to be sparing, when it so happens, to help persecuted and oppressed Christians:
"We, who bear the smallest part of the cross of Christ, remain poor for eternity, if we don't take the greatest part of the love, that which the persecuted Christians need, to take as our charge. While our brothers are washed in blood and tears, we will be tested in love. If we are not eager in our superabundance and not heroic in our love, then we must tremble in our eternity."
To awaken this love in men, is the mission of the organization "Kirche in Not", said Father Werenfried, and warned therefore, that the persecution of the Church worldwide is a "symptom of a spiritual battle not unleashed by men". With a view to the situation of the Church in the West he declared:
"For decades, the Faith has only been preached reluctantly and every has been done, to undercut God's Commandments. People have ceased in the battle against evil and aligned themselves with perversions, which the fallen man feel enamored of."
Werenfried criticized further, that the defensive system of our society is disconnected by this false pacifism. "The result of this infection is death", insisted Werenfield and said, "the less one believes in the Devil, the more dangerous he becomes."
Die Audio-CD "Kardinal Mindszenty - ein kostbares Weizenkorn" kann unentgeltlich auf www.kirche-in-not.de/shop bestellt werden. [You can order the German CD free of charge at that link]
Link to kath.net...
Deutschland:
www.kirche-in-not.de
Kirche in Not
Lorenzonistr. 62
81545 München
Deutschland
1 comment:
Mindszenty was faithful to the death. It was Paul VI who tricked him into leaving his flock behind.
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