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The cure for the world’s ills is to follow Christian morals, spirituality and teachings, Justice Minister Judit Varga said in the United States on Sunday, when she presented a state award to Peter Verhalen, head of Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey.
In her speech, the Minister said that the world has turned in on itself, “humility has become a sin, pride has become a virtue”, adding that “the fires of war are being fanned, claiming that this will lead to peace, while the right to peace is being pushed aside”.
Speaking of the trials of the present, Judit Varga highlighted that “we see social engineers following their feverish desires to confuse the natural laws which God has implanted in the hearts of men and which He has ordained”.
Political adventurers are luring masses of people from poorer regions of the world to wealthier countries with false promises, causing untold suffering to the masses.”
The Justice Minister described the relationship between the Cistercian order, founded in 1098, and Hungary, founded as the Kingdom of Hungary in 1000, as a brotherhood, and pointed out that the first Cistercian abbey was founded in 1142 at the request of Géza II of Hungary.
Judit Varga drew the attention of the audience to the example Blessed János Brenner, a Hungarian Roman Catholic priest and professed member of the Cistercian Order, who was murdered in 1957 during the Communist era. The Minister recalled that
when the communist dictatorship confiscated the property of the Cistercian abbey in Hungary and expelled many of them from the country, the monks who had fled to the United States helped found the Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey.
She added that the monks founded a monastery and established a school that is now regarded by the US Office of Admissions as one of the best schools in the United States. The Minister pointed out that the current abbot, Peter Verhalen, was a student at the Dallas school, where he returned first as a teacher, then as headmaster, and in 2012 was elected as the first non-Hungarian abbot to head the abbey.
With his arrival, it soon became clear that the Hungarians not only had a new friend, but also an abbey leader who respects Hungarian priests and former teachers, and who continues to maintain close ties with local Hungarians,”
emphasized Judit Varga, when she presented the Knight’s Cross to Abbot Peter Verhalen in recognition of his service as a teacher and his work to preserve the Hungarian identity of the institution.
Via MTI, Featured photo via Facebook/Judit Varga