True Shepherds

06-22-2025Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Government Interrogator (to the Cardinal under arrest): You see, you represent a religion ...... which provides an organization outside the state. In your pulpit you are more dangerous than a politician. ... you're a national monument. You are outside the party, and that monument must be ... The Cardinal: Destroyed? Interrogator: Defaced. Dialog from the movie The Prisoner 1955

Ritual for the Consecration of a Bishop ... may he never abandon the truth overcome by praise or fear. May he never place light for darkness, nor darkness for light; may he never call evil good, nor good evil.

The preacher of God's truth has told us that all who want to live righteously in Christ will suffer persecution. The sword falls with double and treble force externally when, without cause being given, there breaks out from within the Church persecution in spiritual matters, where wounds are more serious, especially when inflicted by friends. St Raymond of Penafort O.P.

There is an expression among the clergy "a priest's priest," meaning an inspiration to other priests as to what a priest should be. This essay is about several heroes "several priest's priests" with the fullness of the priesthood, being bishops. They are models of what a bishop should be: living, preaching, and suffering for the Gospel, champions of the Faith, resisting the Church's enemies, in these cases the communists, looking to their conversion.

-Joseyp Cardinal Slipyi

Ukrainian Cardinal Joseyp Slipyj had served eighteen years of forced labor in Soviet concentration camps for his loyalty to the Pope, but once freed in 1962, he was able to participate, years later, in the 1971 Synod of Bishops in Rome. Taking the floor in the respectful silence of the assembly, Slipyj highlighted what no one in Vatican circles had dared to say before, namely that the Holy See's "policy" of rapprochement with communist regimes and with the (Russian) Orthodox Church, the latter as is known often linked to the Soviet regime itself, was dangerous. The diplomatic action carried out at the Pope's behest by the Dutch Cardinal Willebrands was a policy that seriously damaged the Roman Catholic Church in its integrity, creating confusion among the faithful themselves. Slipyj, precisely because of his painful experience, (with the communists) was, as mentioned above, among the voices against Ostpolitik, and for this reason he remained, beyond the beautiful words of appreciation, as for other magnificent figures, very marginalized, ... The heroic bishop died in Rome on September 7, 1984, his funeral was attended by over seven hundred priests and a crowd of faithful.

-Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty

Another giant of those years is certainly the Hungarian Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, a symbol of the fight first against communism and then against Ostpolitik, which he always opposed even at an advanced age. A commitment that cost him, like many others, humiliation, silence and even marginalization from the very Church for which he had endured all suffering. His was a priestly life of suffering from the beginning of his mission; with the end of the First World War and the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the communists seized power with a coup and the young Mindszenty was arrested with the sole crime of being a priest. In 1944, during the world conflict, he was arrested again, by the Nazis and released at the end of the conflict. In 1945 he was consecrated archbishop and primate of Hungary and in 1946 he was elevated to cardinal. But for Mindszenty there was no peace. Three years after the end of the war, the communists took power again ... Mindszenty was arrested, tortured, he was even drugged to make him confess to having conspired against the State, but all was in vain for his tormentors.

A show trial followed, typical of those regimes, he was sentenced to eight years of hard prison. In 1956, at the outbreak of the Hungarian popular uprising against the regime, he took refuge in the American embassy. He always opposed the Vatican negotiations with the communist governments that he knew well, even though the Church was in serious difficulty. His resolute opposition was famous, among other things, to the appointment of bishops in countries under the clear influence of the Soviet Union, that is, only religious people acceptable to their respective regimes; a resolution that humiliated the Church, but supported by the then Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Jean Villot, in the hope of facilitating a dialogue with those countries. An illusion that led, as we will see, to the slow decline and irrelevance of Vatican diplomacy, envied throughout the world for centuries. Meanwhile, the years passed, the world was changing and that cardinal, self-prisoner in the American embassy in Budapest, had become an obstacle to the diplomatic plans of the Vatican, but also to the new policy of Washington, in essence he was now a cumbersome figure.

At the end of 1971 he could no longer resist the "fraternal" invitations of Paul VI himself and out of obedience he accepted exile in Rome. Over time, what he had feared most came true, his marginalization was almost total and so was that of the fight against communism. Embittered by that Church for which he had suffered and fought so much, he preferred to leave Rome and move to Vienna. From the Austrian capital he traveled to the many Hungarian communities scattered around the world making his closeness felt without ever abandoning the fight against communism of which he remained a proud and indomitable adversary. The Budapest regime, however, certainly could not accept such a situation and obtained from the Vatican his definitive marginalization. The order was carried out and, when Mindszenty reached the age of 81, Pope Paul VI immediately asked for his resignation as primate, but the cardinal, a man accustomed to much bigger battles, courageously gave a respectful but clear refusal. Then with an imperious decision on November 18 of the same year, the Pope definitively relieved him from his post after he promised the Cardinal he would not do so. He died in Vienna in 1975, and his body now rests in Esztergom. The Cardinal suffered more from this betrayal than from the communists from whom you expect hostility and betrayal.

-Bishop Pavol Maria Hnilica was born in what is now Slovakia to a poor, deeply Catholic peasant family in 1921. Hnilica began working as a laborer at a very young age and then returned to school and in 1941 entered the Jesuit seminary, but only after the war, was he able to resume his ecclesiastical studies. In 1950 the communists in power, as always, outlawed religious orders and the young Pavol, still only a seminarian, was arrested and deported to a concentration camp near the border with Romania. Once free, he met Msgr. Robert Pobozny who had received a dispensation from the Holy See to ordain priests and even bishops in secret. Thus, the young Hnilica was first consecrated as a priest and then as a bishop in secret, given the dangerous times. This new role also allowed him to consecrate as a priest, among many others, the future cardinal Jan Chryzostom Korec, of whom we will speak later. He met Pope Montini several times, warning him of the deceptions of Ostpolitik; it was clear that the communist regimes did not give up on wanting to liquidate the Church and were open to dialogue with the Holy See only to achieve unilateral advantages, thanks to which they could regain credibility inside and outside their countries. But the Pope remained deaf to these pleas, with the consequences that we still have today. Bishop Hnilica died in his homeland on October 8, 2006.

-Bishop Jan Chryzostom Korec is an example of how a priest can live his mission even amidst insurmountable obstacles, armed only with his own Faith. He had a troubled life like all priests who lived in communist countries, but he is a special case. He was able to officially exercise his mission only a few times, the rest of his life he spent between prison and modest jobs, according to the whims of the authorities, but always he endured everything with great dignity and serenity, despite the degradation in which he sometimes had to live. Because of his painful experience, he was always a fierce opponent of the Vatican Ostpolitik and contested Cardinal Casaroli who, through Ostpolitik, had liquidated the clandestine Church and all of this "in exchange for the vague and uncertain promises of the communists". Korec described this abandonment as "the greatest pain of his life". An immense work, certainly not without dangers, was that of the "Church of Silence" and all of this was sacrificed on the altar of a useless, guilty dialogue.

-Joseph Cardinal Zen Cardinal Zen is a hero still with us a champion against communism in China and the puppet schismatic Church which exists under the thumb of the Chinese communist government. He is a fierce opponent of the compromises with the Communist regime in China carried out by Cardinal Parolin under Pope Francis. An episode like the shameful treatment of Cardinal Mindzsenty by Pope Paul VI was the shameful treatment of Cardinal Zen by Pope Francis. Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Archbishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, was recently arrested for allegedly failing to register a charity designed to help dissidents with the police and of colluding with foreign forces. While the Cardinal reacted to his arrest with the comment, "martyrdom is normal in our Church," the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin, responded by expressing not only concern but also hope that the arrest would not disrupt its dialogue with China. The martyr or the diplomat - who has the Church's best interest in mind? See marcotosatti.com La Resa della Chiesa davanti al Totaliarismo comunista