Hungary’s communist leader Kádár summoned priest before dying
Hungary’s last communist leader János Kádár met a priest at his own request shortly before he died, former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Németh revealed on Tuesday, two decades after Kadar’s death.
“Aunt Mariska (Kádár‘s wife) called me: ‘My husband wants a priest’ she said,” Németh, who headed the country’s last Communist-era government in 1988-1990, told Reuters.
“I still remember the Catholic priest whom I found, he was a short man called Bíró, I think,” he added.
“I don’t know whether Kádár atoned to him or what he told him, you can’t ask a priest about such things. There is no way to find out now — everybody has died since.”
Németh said this happened in late May or early June, 1989. “This (Kádár‘s request) struck all of us as a complete surprise,” he said.
Kádár came to power in 1956, following the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union and the Soviet invasion to restore communist rule. He died on July 6, 1989, on the day that Hungary’s Supreme Court rehabilitated Imre Nagy, Hungary’s prime minister during the uprising who was hanged in 1958 .
Churches were allowed to exist in the former Soviet bloc but the communist regimes were hostile to religion. The head of the Hungarian Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal József Mindszenty, lived as a political refugee in the United States embassy in Budapest from 1956 to 1971, when the government let him leave for exile in Austria.
Skateboarding Hungarian Catholic priest becomes YouTube hit
A Hungarian Roman Catholic priest has become a YouTube hit with his distinctive method of spreading the word on wheels. Rev. Zoltan Lendvai, 45, who lives and preaches in Redics, a small village on Hungary’s border with Slovenia, believes skateboarding can open the way to God for young people.
“Many times I have felt that this is the way I can bring many people a bit closer to Jesus,” he told Reuters.
Read the full story here and watch the musical “international” version of the video “Funny Priest Skateboarding” below:
For Hungarian speakers, follow his commentary on the original video here (“a pap gördeszka gyorstalpalót tart Lentiben”).
So maybe it wasn’t just an Irish joke…
Looks like a story our Dublin office filed back in November wasn’t just an Irish joke.
Catholic priests in Ireland complained last year that tougher laws on drinking and driving meant they would easily go over the limit just by saying mass a few times in one day. Priests in rural areas often drive to several villages every Sunday to say mass, during which drinking a small quantity of wine is an essential part of the ritual.
Bloggers naturally had a field day with this one. “Eucharist could mean ‘water into fine‘,” one wrote. “No more ‘one for the road‘ for Irish priests,” said another. A third asked if drinking was part of a priest’s job description. “Only here in Ireland and only with the Roman Catholic Church could such a story arise,” one concluded.
Well, apparently not…
Our Budapest bureau reports that “Hungary’s Catholic Church has asked the country’s justice minister to exempt its priests from a new regulation which severely punishes drink-driving. Under a ‘zero tolerance’ rule which took effect this month, police can confiscate a driver’s license on the spot if the breathalyser shows any trace of alcohol.
The church plans to issue special cards for its priests to show that they consume alcohol in the fulfilment of official duties.”
Here’s our video report from Hungary:
Not only is it a requirement for alcoholic wine be used in the blood sacrifice of the Mass – whereas in metaphysical terms it should scarcely matter as the wine was going to be transubstantiated into blood and the bread into flesh – bet you’d forgotten that word – but the candles must be at least 63% bees wax .
none of this cheap wax for our men of the cloth -Ok for Paddy Stink and Mickey Muck No 63 % pure bees wax .
I know this as I was a devout server as a boy . Was never abused though was many times in the presence alone with lonely priests in the sacristy.
I must have lacked the piety to be defiled – having lost my virginity , heterosexually , quite early – 14 I think ; so I was obviously contaminated goods .
But I got my first taste and later fondness for alcohol during the preparation for those early masses
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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I think we can only hope that Janos Kadar made his last confession and was welcomed into Paradise by Our Lord.
It is only through the mercy of God that He lets us wait until the last minute to accept our repentence.