Speech #940054482

I realized from the Presidents letter that from now on I would actually be an unwanted guest in the Embassy." he wrote. "I therefore had only the alternative of leaving the embassy and by that act. surrendering to the political police. or leaving the country for the West. as the pope desired." He chose the latter. settling in a threeroom apartment in the gray stone Pazmaneum Building in Vienna. which housed Hungarian seminarians studying in the Austrian capital. It was there he set about writing his "Memoirs." The bitterest blow came Feb. 5. 1974. when the Vatican formally announced his removal as primate of Hungary. after he had refused to resign. "Cardinal Mindszenty cannot abidicate." he said then. and repeated the words in the closing chapter of his book. "This is the path I traveled to the end." he concluded in the "Memoirs." "and this is how I arrived at complete and total exile." In the years since he left Budapest. the aged cardinal traveled widely in addition to writing his "Memoirs." If he was no longer primate of Hungary in the eyes of the official church. Hungarian emigrants wherever he traveled acclaimed him as their own. Wherever he appeared during the two trips he made to the United States. HungarianAmericans brought their children to him to be confirmed in mass ceremonies and jammed the services and events planned for him.