There are many who believe that human beings, and in particular the government, have the right to violate divine laws whenever it seems expedient to do so. This kind of thinking caused innocent people to be interned in concentration camps, robbed of all their possessions, exiled, or murdered outright. Those who issued and carried out such orders, or merely approved of them, all forgot one thing: whenever a conflict arises between human and divine law, we must obey God rather than men. Those who govern this land chose to place themselves above the laws of God. They fail to realize that in doing so, they were undermining the foundations of their own authority.
--Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, Pastoral Letter, May 1945, cited in Memoirs, 1974
