Jesse Romero's Online Blog!

A man I evangelized some years ago, Louis Budenz, the former editor of the Communist Daily Worker, died just a few years ago. I was talking to his widow on the phone the other day, and she recalled the first time that we met. Budenz, as the editor of the Daily Worker, wrote to me and said, “Will you have dinner with me?” It was rather embarrassing. I had been writing articles against the communists, and he had been writing in the Daily Worker against me. Not until after his death did I know that it was the head of the Russian Politburo who ordered Budenz to ask me to dinner. They felt that I was doing too much harm to the cause and, since he once had the faith as a boy, that he could approach me. But I didn't know that then. 

      As we sat down to table, Budenz said, “Now I will tell you what we communists have against you. “You do not believe that Russia is a democracy.”

     “Well,” I said, “How can it be a democracy in light of article 125 of your constitution?”

 He said, “What is article 125?”

“Well,” I said, “as you see, I know your constitution better than you do. So, we're not going to talk about it--we're going to talk about your soul.”

      Much later I learned that when he went home that night, he said to his wife, “I was never so angry in my life. Here I was, sent by the Politburo to talk communism to this man who knows it, and after he mentioned article 125, he said, “I am not interested in your communism, I want to talk to you about your soul” Imagine, my soul. I'm not interested in that.” And from that point on, she told me, that whenever I appeared on radio, he would become furious that my voice was heard in the house and order that the machine be turned off. But Mrs. Budenz also said, “I was not a Catholic, I was a communist. We were not married, just living together. But do you know that every night before we went to sleep, he would reach over and make the sign of the cross on my forehead. I never knew why he did that. I did not know what it was. “Seven years later I received a letter from him asking to see me about his soul. And she asked him then, “Why are you writing to him when you hate him so much?” He replied, “Because he talked to me about my soul. All this time I was worried, really troubled in spirit.'