One of the greatest contemporary personalities
We sat next to Mr. Pupeza in the large compartment of the van. It is a pleasure to listen to him. He tells us that he recently parted company with Petre Țuțea, about whom he speaks in superlatives. I’d only vaguely heard of Țuțea before. Now I hear of him as one of the greatest contemporary personalities. Time will confirm what Mr. Pupeza’s admiration for him had already foreseen (…).
We are approaching the prison. When we see it, we look at it with all our attention. From the outside, the prison doesn’t look so frightening. From a distance, you can’t even imagine the hell inside. In fact, the torment of this hell is not caused by the walls or the bars, but by the wickedness and cruelty of the guards and the policemen. But you can’t see it, you can only feel it. We crossed the bridge where, years ago, on Sundays, we saw Colonel Koller limping towards the stadium in a parade dress. He was supposedly a war invalid. From the Spanish Civil War. An ardent student of the Talmud and a good Bolshevik, he had fought in Spain to overthrow Christianity.
When we arrived in the prison yard, Colonel Crăciun told us that we had been brought to the prison to hear Petre Țuțea speak.
– “I brought you especially,” Crăciun says, addressing me, “so that you could see and hear that Țuțea was also convinced of the truth of what we said.”
I bowed, smiling, overwhelmed, it seemed, by so much honour. I couldn’t help wondering why Colonel Crăciun was so insistent on getting me to speak. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that his insistence had far-reaching aims. The old legionnaires whom he has persuaded to make a mea culpa will soon disappear, one by one, under the inexorable march of time. We young people, on the other hand, although we have passed through the forks of the Zarca, will last longer in life and be a danger in the future. (…)
Although Petre Țuțea’s speech lasted at least two hours, it did not provide the long-awaited proof that he was convinced of the “truths” of Christmas. On the contrary, he had to acknowledge the depth of the truths spoken by the great Romanian thinker. I can only regret that there was no way of recording what this unsurpassed orator said in front of us. It was a veiled plea for our destiny as “absolute Romanians”.
(Fr. Liviu Brânzaș – Ray from the Catacomb)