Religion: The Mindszenty Story

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What happened to Cardinal Mindszenty during his eight years of Communist imprisonment is a story that will be long in the telling. The cardinal himself has said that he is not yet ready to reveal all the details—especially concerning his trial in 1949. But this week the New York Herald Tribune is publishing a six-part record of the cardinal's experiences, as told to one of his closest confidants, Father Josef Vecsey, 43, who grew up as a neighbor of Mindszenty's. As soon as the cardinal was liberated by the Hungarian revolution. Vecsey rushed to his side, had long talks with him before being forced to flee the country.

"Coactus Feci." Mindszenty had been expecting his arrest. It came on the day after Christmas, in 1948, when 16 political policemen armed with automatic rifles took him to their notorious Andrassy Street headquarters, stripped him of his breviary, rosary and religious habit. "For 16 days and nights they hammered at me, squeezed me with questions. My interrogators worked in shifts . . . They tortured both my soul and my body."

One day they put before him a typewritten confession and commanded him to sign. "I did what they asked, and I remember clearly that I put the two letters, C.F., after my name. My torturers were surprised at this, and asked me what the letters C.F.' meant. Despite my dazed state, the defense mechanism of the human body worked, and even smiling at them, I answered: 'It means a cardinal without office.' " It took his captors some time to find out that C.F. stood for the Latin coactus feci ("I have been forced to act") —a symbol used by many Christians to sign extorted confessions during the years of Turkish rule in Hungary (1547-1699).

By September 1949, after his trial, Mindszenty was suffering acutely from "my old disease, my thyroid disturbance." Transferred to Budapest's Conti Prison, he was held in solitary confinement for four years, the cells on each side of him empty to prevent wall-tapping communication. His cell was "small and crumbling. There was a straw mat to sleep on, a table, a stool, a small bucket for one's needs and another for water." While in solitary, "I received no mail, read no newspapers and no books except my breviary and my Bible . . . Each day I said my rosary six times. Much of the time I prayed for strength . . . Once I was beaten."

"Ready to Die." Transferred again because of his failing health. Mindszenty was now treated somewhat better, occasionally was allowed a bottle of wine. But his condition grew worse. "I was ready to die . . . but I decided again that I would pull all my strength together because I did not want to please them by dying." His prison physician ("A religious man, a good Protestant who did his best") diagnosed TB, insisted on "good air and sun."

On July 16, 1955, the day before the start of the Geneva Conference. Mindszenty was driven to Castle Puspokszentlaszlo in southern Hungary, summer residence of the bishop of Pecs. "There was a wide lawn lined with flowers, and beyond that a wood of spruce trees. After so many years in darkness, the sight [was] medicine to me."