VATICAN II AND HUNGARY 55the Communist leaders wanted to use the world meeting to their
advantage. This led to some surprising results for a country like
Hungary, where the encounter between the Church and commu-
nism had been marked by persecution and conflict.
The Persecution of the Catholic Church in Hungary
before the Second Vatican Council
On June 18, 1959, Domenico Cardinal Tardini, secretary of state
of the Holy See, sent letters to all of the world’s Catholic bishops,
asking them to make proposals as to how to redress the most ur-
gent problems facing the Church in order to prepare for the uni-
versal Council. The way in which the Hungarian bishops respond-
ed, or rather did not respond, to this letter tells us a lot about the
situation in which the Hungarian Church found itself in the years
immediately preceding Vatican II.12
Only five of seventeen Hungarian bishops received Tardi-
ni’s letter, and only the eighty-year-old Bishop Lajos Shvoy of
Székesfehérvár managed to send a reply to the Roman commit-
tee responsible for the preparation of the Council.13 Shvoy ’s let-
ter included a few proposals focusing on how the Church as an
institution could be strengthened in a hostile environment and
how the rights of the Church could be defended. Bishop Shvoy
also wanted a condemnation of materialism as well as an exten-
sion of the Index of Banned Books to include radio, television,
spy network around and inside the Vatican, see Tamás Majsai, “ ‘Ismereteimet soha,
senkinek nem fedhetem fel,’ ” Beszélő folyóirat , no. 12 (2007).
- The following is based on Fejérdy, “Magyar javaslatok a II. Vatikáni zsina-
tra,” Vigilia, no. 7 (2009). - Lajos Shvoy was born in 1879 in Budapest, where he attended the schools
of the archbishop. He continued his studies at a Benedictine school in Esztergom,
where he also finished his theological studies. After becoming a priest in 1901, he
worked for the Regnum Marianum College and Parish in Budapest. In 1927, he was
nominated bishop of Székesfehérvár. In February 1945, he was arrested by Hungar-
ian fascists and liberated by Soviet troops.