Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Writer, Soldier or Priest?
Childhood – Fascinated by Heroes and Saints
In a Cassock
Chapter 2. The Parish Priest of Zalaegerszeg
Qualis Rex, Talis Grex – as the Priest, so also his Flock
The Builder
In the Thick of Public Life
Prelate Pehm and Territorial Revision in the Mura Region
Chapter 3. In the City of the Queens
Veszprém’s New Bishop and the Final Days of the War
As a Prisoner of the Arrow Cross Regime
“Under God’s Free Sky”
Chapter 4. The Hungarian Mount Zion
Appointment as Primate
In a Legal Swirl
In the “Eternal City”
For the Rule of Law
Prisoners-of-War, Deportees, and the Defense of Human Rights
Chapter 5. Frontlines
In the Crossfire
Battle Axe and Peace Pipe – the Events of 1947
The Dispute Over Schools
“We Will Destroy Mindszenty-ism!”
The Final Act
Chapter 6. “I Will Smite the Shepherd, and the Sheep of the Flock Shall Be Scattered Abroad” (Matthew 26:31)
The Arrest
The Script for the Trial and its “Undoing”
The Trial (February 3–8, 1949)
Chapter 7. The Third Term of Imprisonment and a Brief Interlude of Freedom
A Convicted Criminal
A Return to Public Life
In the Thick of the Revolution
Chapter 8. The Guest – A Decade and a Half Spent at the US Embassy
“The Cardinal is at the Door…”
Political Refuge – with Thorns
Asylum Prospects
“…to Paradise”
Haggling in the Background
The Visitors
The Final Item on the Agenda
Everyday Life at the Legation
The Exchange of Envoys
Bearing the “Heaviest Cross”
Chapter 9. In Exile
In the Golden Cage
“If I Resigned, I would Become an Accomplice to the Crime…”
Denied his Title and Status
Conclusion
Sources and Bibliography
List of Plates
Index