VATICAN II AND HUNGARY 65sent back to headquarters in Budapest. The operation of Hungar-
ian state security during the First Session of Vatican II was closely
coordinated with the Hungarian embassy in Rome. Altogether,
twenty secret agents supervised the operation. Most were Hun-
garians, but they were also joined by specialists from other Com-
munist countries, and even a few Italians.
Some Vatican circles warmly welcomed the Hungarian delega-
tion because they regarded its presence as a valuable opportunity
to finally get information and insights into the situation of one of
the “silenced” churches behind the Iron Curtain, twelve years af-
ter the last representative of the Hungarian Catholic Church had
been allowed to visit Rome. On July 3, 1963, newly elected Pope
Paul VI personally received the delegation. The pontiff expressed
his wish to come to a final resolution of the case of Cardinal
Mindszenty, mentioning that President Kennedy supported him
in the matter. According to the state security informant Pál Bre-
zanóczy, the pope had literally said, “Mindszenty makes big head-
lines in the news, but the situation of being an embassy’s guest is
not healthy.”43 The statement, if it is accurate, indicates that Paul
VI was interested from the beginning in achieving some form of
normalization regarding the situation of the Church in Hungary.
When the Second Session started in September 1963, Agostino
Casaroli, the Vatican’s special envoy to the Communist world, had
already begun negotiations with the Hungarian government, fo-
cusing particularly on the nomination of new bishops and on the
problem of bishops not recognized by the state. Western media—
for example, the Catholic Herald of London—reported a relaxation
of relations between the Hungarian Church, the Vatican, and the
Communist government. The Herald’s readers learned on July 12,
1963, “Reports from Budapest indicate that the life of the Church
- Quoted in Máté-Tóth, “A II. Vatikani Zsinat és a magyar elhárítás.” The re-
port is taken from the “Canale” file, published in Szabó, A Szentszék és a Magyar Nép-
köztársaság kapcsolatai a hatvanas években, 127.