Primate who always defies the Reds

THE man who is a living symbol of resistance to tyranny observes the 10th anniversary of his political asylum in the U.S. legation in Budapest, Hungary, this week.
Cardinal Mindszenty, since his arrest by the communists 17 years ago, has seen only a few days of freedom. He fled to the U.S. legation on November 4, 1956, as the Soviet army moved on Budapest to put down a short-lived uprising by Hungarian freedom fighters.
Although he enjoys full personal freedom in the American embassy, the normal conditions of asylum have prevented him from exercisiong his episcopal responsibilities or seeing regular visitors.
Although there have been rumours and much speculation about his leaving Hungary during his 10 years in the U.S. legation, the Cardinal seems steadfast in his position that he will not leave the country unless the Hungarian government guarantees full freedom to the country's Catholics and clears him of his conviction in 1949. Although he became world famous for his stand against Communism, earlier in his career he stood equally steadfast against fascism.
In Full Robes.
His sharply worded pastorals and sermons denouncing Nazi excesses, especially their persecution of the Jews, made him the focal point of Hungarian resistance efforts. As a result, along with 10 priests and 16 seminarians, he was arrested and jailed on November 27, 1944. He accompanied his jailers to prison in his full episcopal robes.
When the Nazis were driven out of Hungary, Bishop Mindszenty was released.
When promoted to Primate of Hungary on October 2. 1945, he found himself facing the new threats to the Church in Hungary, with the occupation by the Soviet Army and the beginning of the Red drive which eventually made his country a Communist satellite of the U.S.S.R.
Cardinal Mindszenty addressed protest after protest to government authorities. By 1948 the Communists were firmly in power and began a drive to isolate the cardinal from the hierarchy, clergy and laity.
Anti-Mindszenty demonstrations were staged and the cardinal was deprived of answering Red charges by restriction of the right to issue pastoral letters. But when Catholic schools were placed under government control in July, 1948, the Cardinal announced the excommunication of every Catholic member of Parliament who had voted for the bill.
The Red campaign against the Cardinal was stepped up. in November he took note of it in a short pastoral letter. Foreseeing the probability of his arrest, he declared that any confession he might make while in Communist hands would be only the consequence of human frailty and therefore null and void.
On December 26, 1948, he was arrested. He was brought to trial in February, 1949. His conviction on charges of espionage, treason and illicit dealing in currency brought protests from all parts of the world, not only from Catholic sources but from Protestant, Jewish and secular groups as well.
In July, 1955. he was moved from prison and placed under house arrest until he was freed by Hungarian freedom fighters during the uprising, on October 30, 1956.
Japan's family allowances
FACED with prospects of a growing labour shortage. the Japanese Government is to start children's allowances in 1968. To begin with these will be paid only to lower income families and to couples with three or more children.
The move is a big change from the former policy of birth limitation because of over-population. The government's birth control programme, begun shortly after the last war, included legalised abort ion.
Earlier this year the authorities expressed the hope that the growth rate was finally under control, based on the fact that the population grew by only 1.4 per cent a year between 1960 and 1965,