Voices were raised in Hungary against these arbitrary expulsions. The liberal parties, particularly the Smallholder Party and the surviving democratic press, criticized the sweeping nature of classifying every ethnic German as a traitor. Cardinal József Mindszenty (he was of Swabian origin), as head of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary and a fierce anti-communist, repeatedly protested the property confiscation and expulsion of all ethnic Germans. He addressed world public opinion, strongly condemning what was happening in Hungary. These protests had no effect, and with the increasing communist domination of the Hungarian Government, the opposition was gradually eliminated. (In 1949 Mindszenty was tried for treason by the Communist Government and given a life sentence. In the 1956 Hungarian revolution, he was given asylum in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, from whence he was finally allowed to go into exile in 1971.