Fr. Joel Sember serves as pastor of three churches in the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin. When he shared the audio recording of his most recent homily, entitled “The Problem with the Catholic Church is…,” I found it hard to suppress my curiosity. The homily’s theme was prompted by the cancellation of Saturday evening Mass at St. Anthony, one of […]
It was the year of the Lord 2019 when the hordes of illegal migrants flooded the shores of Nirvana. The threat to this huge and peaceful nation was overwhelming. Crowds of vigilantes marched on the streets all over the country demanding the newly elected president, who using tweeters, came to power by promising newly minted jokes daily. Senator Gloomingdale pointed […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last sat next to an American president in the Oval Office 21 years ago, in 1998. At the time, the 35 year old Mr. Orbán, serving his first four year term at the helm of the Hungarian government, sat in the company of President Bill Clinton. Mr. Orbán had then just completed his transformation from an […]
Two Romanian citizens, Mr. István Beke and Mr. Zoltán Szőcs were arrested in November, 2015. They are ethnic Hungarians and local leaders of a group called Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (Hatvannégy Vármegye Ifjúsági Mozgalom). The two man were charged with planning to detonate an improvised device during the December 1, 2015, National Day celebration in Targu Secuiesc (Kézdivásárhely in Hungarian), […]
A public institution for the disabled in the southwestern Hungarian village of Mozsgó (population 1,000) is under scrutiny after a complaint detailed widespread abuse of the intellectually disabled residents by staff. Hungary’s Népszava daily reported on a detailed complaint and video evidence documenting the physical abuse and the overall inhumane treatment of residents. In one of the videos, produced with […]
On February 12 hundreds of scientists formed a human chain around the historic Hungarian Academy of Sciences building in downtown Budapest. Members of the Academy inside were holding an emergency meeting to decide how to handle the threat to the nation’s science community from the authoritarian Orbán government. The protests started when Hungary’s minister for innovation and technology, László Palkovics, […]
George Lázár’s call for the removal of the Hungarian autocracy’s former US ambassador, Réka Szemerkényi from her post at the prestigious Washington based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) is an important initiative that should be embraced by all Americans, regardless of Party affiliation, because it is a step in the direction of the path that leads towards justice, the […]
I am compelled to reflect on a letter written by Béla Lipták and published in The New York Times. In response to an NYT article entitled “Hungary’s Autocracy Beneath a Patina of Democracy,” Mr. Lipták argued that Hungary’s slide towards authoritarianism and the embrace of anti-western rhetoric is caused by, and is indeed justifiable due to, a deep-rooted anger and a sense […]
We last spoke in the summer of 2017. (See HFP’s piece here and here.) At that time, you had been sentenced to two and a half years in prison and your partner, Miklós Tátrai, received three years from the Curia for the Sukoró land swap deal of 2008. When I interviewed you with Christopher Adam at this time, you came […]
On October 23, Hungarians commemorate the Revolution of 1956. The uprising was an unplanned nationwide upheaval against the harsh Stalinist government of the People’s Republic of Hungary. It lasted from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Over 2,500 Hungarian citizens and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the hostilities and close to 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees. About half of […]
