Justinian Cardinal Seredi of Hungary, in a strongly-worded speech delivered in Budapest and broadcast last night over the Vatican radio, bitterly condemned the Nazi racial theories, and demanded that Hungary give protection “to all who are menaced on account of their beliefs or their race.”
Without mentioning the Jews, the Cardinal called upon the people in Hungary to abstain from participating in mass-executions. He also warned that “the Church will deny sacraments to those who have helped to carry off others and send them to forced labor for ideological reasons” as is the case with the Jews in Hungary. “Hungary must remain a state based on her own justice and must not bow to alien injustice,” he stated.
“We Magyars,” Cardinal Seredi said, “have now and then been called a master race. We are not, nor do we want to be one. But neither do we want to recognize another people as a master race. There are no master races in the world, but only the servants of God and the prey of the devil. Service of God liberates, while service of demonical power enchains.
“There are no inferior nations. The Star of Epiphany shines on all nations. In my capacity as a man baptized, confirmed and ordained, I testify before my country and the world to the eternal truth. Whosoever fails to recognize that we are all children of one heavenly father, that we are in every respect of equal right at the gates of the realm of eternity, and that therefore we must be free, is a tool or undisguised emissary of the realm of darkness.
“Considering all the attempts by the Church which I represent to codify its interpretation of society, the spirit of the Church knows no discrimination of race, citizenship, nationality, birth or wealth. The Catholic Church and my order have always rejected this as unchristian, inhuman, insensible. And we wish to become once more Christians, human beings, sensible and remain so.
“There is only one scale of value, namely personal and moral character. There is no such thing as a character of a people (voelkisch), far less superiority of a people. A Hungarian who believes such nonsense ought to blush with shame at having forgotten to which people he belongs, and withdraw to his chamber and with help of God regain Hungarian reason by reading the Gospel and the history of his country.
“I know what is right according to the law of my Church, and as a Bishop I shall see to it that its view is strictly observed so far as my jurisdiction extends. Murder is murder and a man who commits political murder, who carries out mass execution ordered for political reasons, will be buried in earth without any participation of the Church, when he meets his death, however that may happen. The Church will deny sacraments to those who have helped to carry off others and send them to forced labor for ideological reasons, and he who makes the innocent suffer for the guilty, and causes or executes the murder of hostages, will bear Cain’s mark of depravity for ever.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
