BACKGROUND OF TRIAL IS SIMPLE ONE

Chronicle (Levin), 5 February 1949, Page 5

BACKGROUND OF TRIAL IS SIMPLE ONE

LONHCN, Feb. 4. . Cardinal Mindszenty has many months in whieh to make a fateful choice — no compromise, no flight and if need be, martyrdom, says The Times in an article detailing the growth of the conflict between Cardinal Mind szenty and the Communist regime m Hungary. Nevertheless, The Times eontinues, many who dislike the Communists have been dismayed at the Cardinai's policy. At lj»ast one arehbishop and one bishop , have been privately opposed to him throughout. The background of his trial is simple. Tf the Ro man Catholic Church .in Hungary had followed the Calvinists and had been now on working terms with the Government, such a eompromis« would have been a weapon for Communism everywlfere. The Cardinal, by rejecting it, has given a direct lead to Catholics and an indirect one to nonRoman Catholics and so appears to Communists as an international and nol merely a local enemy. Cardinal Mindszenty seized for himself a peak, not only in a religious battle, but in a struggle for world power. To retreat from it, in his view although not in the view of all who dislike Oomnrunion, would involve a ma.i'or victory for Communism and a major retreat for all who support Christian freedom as interpreted in the West. The Times says: "Thus, what in the West is seen as the cause of freedom will be represented bv an implacable and fearless._jnan equally willing to go to the stake or send his enemies there. in political opinion he may be said to belong to an age goue by, yet this preparedness in cold blood and increasing loneliness to go to prison, and if need be die for his belief, places him, if only as a man, on an eminence above dispute."