CATHOLIC HERALD

20 years ago
February 18, 1949.
BECAUSE he refused last week to admit a motion from the floor denouncing the arrest of Cardinal Mindszenty as a "violation of human rights" the President of the Cambridge Union faced a vote of censure when the University Debating Society reassembled on Monday night.
The President of the Union—described to me as "a sort of super-Christian" who is above identifying cases like the Cardinal's with any religious issue— was surprised by the strength of feeling against him.
The man who raised this week's storm was a young law undergraduate, Norman St. John-Stevas, Union Committee member and a Catholic.
Before the "House" settled down to its debate last week, he proposed the motion condemning the Hungarian Primate's arrest —and was promptly ruled out of order by the president.
Mr. Stevas refused to give way. And in a somewhat emotionally charged atmosphere, he walked out of the Union Chamber in protest — with fifty supporters at his heels.
The "rebels" decided to move a vote of censure as the most effective form of counter-attack.
Monday night's censure debate—the heated sequel to Stevas's action—was a protracted ding-dong affair. It ended in the defeat of the censure motion by a heavy majority.
But so badly shaken were Union officials that they preferred "not to say anything at all about the incident. We regard it as unfortunate — and it's now closed."