Religion: The Churches and Hungary

Churches the world over reacted with shock and indignation to the Soviet Union’s merciless crushing of Hungary. In a dramatic broadcast to both sides of the Iron Curtain, Pope Pius XII condemned the “illegal and brutal repression” and declared that Christians have “a moral obligation to try all permissible means in order that the dignity and freedom of the Hungarian people be restored.” In one of the strongest statements of his pontificate, his voice trembling with emotion, he urged free people to “close their ranks as fast as possible and link in a solid public pact all those governments and people which want the world to proceed on the path of the honor and the dignity of the children of God.”

The Pope continued: “Too much blood has been unjustly shed! Too much mourning and slaughter has been suddenly renewed! The slender thread of confidence which had begun to reunite peoples and gave some comfort to souls appears to be broken . . . Can the world disinterest itself in these brothers, abandoning them to a fate of degrading slavery? Let all other problems be set aside . . . Perhaps if nations which sincerely love freedom and peace are united, this will be sufficient to induce those who break the fundamental laws of human understanding to milder counsels.”

Churchmen of all faiths seemed ready to agree. Said the World Council of Churches in Geneva: “Christians must stand together with all who, in the struggle for freedom, suffer pain and trial.” The National Council of Churches in the U.S. cabled the Russian Orthodox Church, asking it to work for “the avoidance of further bloodshed and oppression.”

One of the most moving pleas came from a man who had enjoyed his own freedom less than two weeks—Poland’s Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski. Preparing to go to Rome to receive his red hat from the Pope (when he was made cardinal in 1953, he did not dare leave Poland for fear that the Communists would not allow him to return), Wyszynski preached his first sermon since his release from Red imprisonment (TIME, Nov. 12). He did not mention Hungary, but his words held bitter aptness: “We were proud of the soth century. Yet that first half of the century has brought with it such terrible stains on almost all social, political and state organs that we can truly regard that century as a great disaster, as a slap in the face to a proud man . . .

“In many states monstrous institutions have been established to rule the people, the very mention of which brings blushes to the face of modern man . . . That suffering which is a stain on modern life in almost all parts of the world now calls out from the depths, from the bottom of the soul, with a great voice, asking for man’s right to the truth, to freedom, to some sort of justice, to love.”

Wyszynski’s parting words showed his anxiety for Poland’s future. “Poles can die heroically. A man can only die once and thus quickly cover himself in fame, but our lives are spent in long years of toil, trial and tribulation. That is still more heroic. This is the kind of greater heroism which the present time requires.”