Remarks for Award of Gold Cross of Merit of Hungary
April 12, 2023

Good afternoon.  I’m Liza Forshaw, and I’m really touched that all of you took the time to be here on this gorgeous spring day.  We’ll start the program at this time and then enjoy some more refreshments afterwards.  Please take a seat at a table.

I want to extend a warm welcome to the Consul General in Chicago of the nation of Hungary, Tamas Kovacs.  With him is Zsolt Pava, the Diplomatic Representative to Hungarian Communities Abroad from the Chicago Consulate.

Thank you!  Or as they say in Hungarian, koszonom!  I was surprised and am honored to receive the Gold Cross of Merit from Hungary.  Those of you who know me well, know that I don’t relish the spotlight.  But I’m happy to accept this award, because it gives me the opportunity to tell all of you a little about the history of the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, about the great Hungarian hero of the Cold War for whom it is named, and about the memorable lady who devoted 54 years of her life to co-founding and building the organization, my late aunt Eleanor Schlafly, whom some of you knew personally.

Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty was a cardinal of the Catholic Church and the highest-ranking Catholic prelate in Hungary from 1945 to 1973.  He stubbornly resisted both Nazi and Communist ideologies and paid a huge personal price for his resistance.  At one time he was world-famous; he was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1949 as their Man of the Year.  That year he was imprisoned, tortured and drugged, subjected to a widely condemned show trial, and given a life sentence by the then-Communist government of Hungary.  During the brave but short-lived Hungarian uprising against the Communists in 1956, he was released from prison and made a radio address to the Hungarian people, speaking out for their freedom.  When Soviet tanks and the Red Army brutally suppressed that uprising, Mindszenty took refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.  He remained there for the next 15 years, steadfastly advocating in writing for freedom, especially freedom of religion, and against communist tyranny.  He left Hungary in 1971 in accordance with a deal made by the Vatican with the Hungarian government.  He spent his last years in Vienna and touring in other countries including the United States and Canada.

I’m pleased to report that Mindszenty’s moving memoirs, which were out of print for several decades, have just been republished in a handsome new paperback edition, by Ignatius Press.  Here is a copy if any of you want to look at it.   Also, four years ago the Catholic Church declared Mindszenty “Venerable,” that is, possessed of “heroic virtue,” which put him on a path to possible future canonization as a Catholic saint.  I understand Mindszenty is much admired in Hungary today.

How did the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation come to be named after him?  The answer is that my aunt Eleanor, and my parents Fred and Phyllis Schlafly were strongly anti-Communist American Catholics who deeply admired Mindszenty and his uncompromising stance against Communism.  They were keenly aware of the Soviet oppression of countries in Central and Eastern Europe following the Second World War, and also of Communist China’s persecution of Catholic priests.  In fact, as a young woman Eleanor had worked for an organization in New York City dedicated to raising awareness of the suffering of what were then called the Captive Nations of Europe, behind the Iron Curtain. In addition, Eleanor and my parents were very concerned about the spread of noxious Communist ideology in the United States, including infiltration of our federal government in the 1930s and ‘40s, which was a real thing later proven beyond a doubt by Soviet documentation.

So in 1958, the year I was born, Eleanor and my parents decided there was a need for a nonprofit organization in the U.S., with a Catholic orientation, dedicated to educating the public about what’s wrong with Communism.  They co-founded the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation and began issuing a monthly newsletter to a national list of subscribers.  Their programming expanded over the years to include study groups, speaker conferences in various cities, and radio interviews.  Eleanor devoted her heart and soul to building up the membership.  For a long time it operated out of little outbuildings at her home here in St. Louis County, with a small staff plus volunteers she charmed into helping her.  Later it moved to an office building nearby in Clayton, where it still operates today.

Eleanor and my parents lived to see some of their dreams come true with the ability to meet Cardinal Mindszenty in person, in Vienna and in St. Louis, in the early 1970s, and receive his blessing on their organization’s work.  Another dream come true was the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire beginning in 1989, which resulted in freedom for Hungary from Soviet domination.

Eleanor celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation in 2008, with a big party and a golden anniversary booklet full of pictures.  We have extra copies of that booklet here, and I encourage any of you who are interested to take one and learn about the history of the organization.  This year is its 65^th anniversary year.

When Eleanor, at age 92, was no longer able to manage the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, I took over for her, in 2012.  The monthly newsletter, the Mindszenty Report, is still being published and mailed to a national list of subscribers.  We have copies of some recent issues here if you care to see them.  We also have a website at mindszenty.org.  Our readers continue to send us fan letters and generous donations to sustain our work. I’d like to point out three people here today who assist me in that work:  my fellow board member and cousin David Schlafly, our office manager Caroline Corley and our bookkeeper Brittany Neff. Plus, my husband of 42 years, Joe Forshaw, supports everything I do.  We collaborate with St. Mary of Victories Church, the historic Hungarian-American parish in downtown St. Louis, to sponsor an occasional speaker there.  In fact, a speaker event has been scheduled there for Sunday April 30, when Scott Wilson will enlighten us about the early 20^th-century British Catholic author G. K. Chesterton.  Please pick up a flyer here for that event and feel free to join us there.

While the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation has branched out over the years to cover a variety of topics besides communism, I’m sorry to say that today communism seems to be gaining influence in the United States.  And of course there are still a number of true communist countries around the world, notably China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.  Russia is in the grip of a former KGB official and dictator who is conducting a horrifying war of aggression against Ukraine and has snatched U.S. citizens in Russia as hostages.  It is perhaps a blessing that Eleanor is not here to see that the U.S. Congresswoman for my own district is an avowed communist.  Or that corporate America has been falling all over itself to donate staggering sums in the last 3 years to the anti-police organization Black Lives Matter Network, which was founded by self-described trained Marxists.  So, we think the need to educate the public about the gigantic errors and atrocities of communism and socialism has not gone away.  Some of you here today came to the U.S. as refugees from a communist country, including China and Czechoslovakia as well as Hungary, and you really know what I'm talking about.

I’m glad to continue Eleanor’s legacy, as a volunteer like her, and I’m grateful to the government of Hungary for recognizing the value of the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation.  As a token of my appreciation, I’d like to give Mr. Kovacs and Mr. Pava each a little framed picture of our namesake.  Hungary is a small country that has endured many horrendous invasions by foreign armies over its long history.  That it is still standing, and preserving its unique language and culture, is a testament to its people’s will to survive.

I’d like to conclude with a toast: to the NO-longer-communist nation of Hungary, and to the many courageous individuals who did their part to stand up for freedom there and around the world.  Eljen magyarorszag!

Thank you so much for coming, and now please enjoy the party!