Fifty years ago, in June of 1974 in the year before his holy death, the Venerable Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary until his removal in 1973, visited the United States, and most particularly St. Michael’s of the Norbertine Fathers in Orange County, California. There he celebrated Holy Mass and presided at the graduation of the community’s boarding school, St Michael’s Prep. The Venerable Cardinal was himself an alumnus of the Norbertine Fathers’ gymnasium in Szombathely, Hungary, the alma mater of Abbot Ladislas Parker, himself founding abbot of St. Michael’s in the New World. 

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In marking this anniversary publicly, the abbey community invited Ambassador Eduard von Habsburg, Hungary’s ambassador to the Holy See and to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, to give two lectures. The first was on the person and legacy of the Venerable Cardinal, the second on the present state of Catholics in civil society, especially in Europe and with comparisons (always favorable!) with Catholics in the US.

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There was an engaged and enthusiastic audience made up of members of the Order of Malta who graciously underwrote the event with its luncheon, members of the Hungarian community in Southern California, and Norbertine confreres from the abbey.

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It is earnestly hoped that the first of the “Mindszenty Lectures” will serve as a spur to greater interest in the cause for the beatification of Jozsef Mindzsenty, declared Venerable by Pope Francis in 2019. To obtain this end, let us ask for his intercession for those who need miracles of healing! This is necessary since the Church, which has already declared that he possessed the virtues, theological and cardinal, to an heroic degree, now awaits divine approval of his cause by the granting of a miracle.

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So, again, let us please be eager to promote prayer through his intercession among ourselves and those whom we know to be in need of a miracle!

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