VATICAN II AND HUNGARY 57cent) and African bishops (83 percent) were even more respon-
sive to the Vatican’s call. All told, 77 percent of the 2,594 bishops
from all over the world replied.
The situation of the Catholic Church in Communist Hungary
was very difficult, to say the least. Primate Mindszenty’s 1949 ar-
rest and show-trial conviction, followed seven years later by the
crushing of Hungary’s anti-Soviet revolution, positioned church
and society alike against an inimical state. According to András
Fejérdy, the most complex problem was the right to nominate
Hungarian bishops, which Admiral Horthy’s government had
granted in 1927 to the pope alone as the so-called Intesa semplice.
This was a right that the Communists, however, did not ac-
knowledge.17 Between 1956 and 1959, the Holy See had considered
the survival of the Communist regime questionable and was not
willing to compromise. Under John XXIII, however, the Vatican
came to the conclusion that communism was there to stay, and
there followed growing anxiety that the Communists could form
a national church like in China, which would result in a Hungar-
ian schism.18
In order to prepare for this eventuality, the Vatican planned
to install a “catacomb” hierarchy: bishops consecrated by a secret
envoy of the Holy See. At the same time, Rome was increasingly
interested in gathering firsthand information. The Polish pri-
mate, Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński, had also advised John XXIII
to meet representatives from the “silenced church.” The pope
therefore invited the bishops from Communist countries to meet
- Fejérdy, “Szentszéki stratégiák a magyarországi püspöki székek betöltése ér-
dékében 1945–64 között” (April 30, 2012), at http://hu.radiovaticana.va/print_page.
asp?c=583487; accessed March 12, 2014. Regarding the background of the Intesa sem-
plice, see Árpád von Klimó, “Impartialität versus Revisionismus? Zum Verhältnis
zwischen dem Heiligen Stuhl und Ungarn in der Zwischenkriegszeit,” in Der Heilige
Stuhl in den internationalen Beziehungen 1870–1939, ed. Jörg Zeidler (Munich: Her-
bert Utz Verlag, 2010), 311–32. - Fejérdy, “Szentszéki stratégiák.”