The Mother

1949. The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral--a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby's body . . . The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God's creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation . . . What on God's good earth is more glorious than this; to be a mother? --Joszef Cardinal Mindszenty The author of this book is the inflexible hero of Catholic resistance against godless Communism and state absolutism in Hungary. Born March 29, 1892, in Csehimindszent, Hungary and ordained a priest in 1915, he was arrested in 1919 and again in 1944. He was appointed primate of Hungary in 1945 and made a cardinal in 1946. Refusing to permit Hungary's Roman Catholic schools to be secularized by the communists, he was arrested in 1948 and convicted of treason the next year. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he was freed in the Hungarian Revolution (1956). When the communists regained control, he sought asylum in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest and lived there for 15 years, refusing Vatican requests to leave Hungary. He relented in 1971, settled in Vienna, and was involuntariliy retired as primate of Hungary in 1974 by the post-conciliar Church.