Egyháztörténeti Szemle 14. (2013)
2013 / 2. szám - SUMMARIES IN ENGLISH - Petrás Éva: The Social Teaching and the Social Question - The Reception of the Catholic Social Teaching among the Hungarian Catholic Intelligentsia, 1931-1944
Summaries in English 95 Polish participation in the International Eucharistic Congress in 1938 Debreceni, Péter The International Eucharistic Congress held in Budapest in May 1938 paid a great deal of attention to the Catholic community in Hungary. Some hundreds of thousands celebrating Hungarian Catholics and about 60 thousands foreign Catholics arrived at the country to participate in the Eucharistic programs and celebrations. This huge number of participants and the successfully completed world meeting improved the image of Hungary, which was then a bad one during the period between the two World Wars. The largest participated groups of pilgrims were from Italy and Poland. We have different statistics about the exact number of Polish Catholics, but we could confirm that the officially estimated number was 4,000 believers had not arrived to Budapest. Most probably only half or third of this number came to the International Congress (some statistics say 1200, 1500 or 2000 pilgrims). The dailies, which examined while preparing this paper, extensively dealt with the proceedings of that congress, with an extensive detail too. All that was often mentioned on the title pages of those dailies. Those newspapers, many times, posted different pictures of the masses and sometimes about the capital of Hungary, with headlines say "this is one of the most beautiful city on the world". The Polish and Hungarian press alluded, many times, to the traditional friendship between Hungary and Poland. They confirm that participation of a significant number Polish groups had defiantly reflected this relationship. The dailies very often wrote about the positive impression, sympathy and intimacy of the Hungarian society for those groups. A matter that was shown and touched during the whole event. Furthermore, the papers dealt with political events which were going on at that time, especially those relevant to Nazism and Communism, definitely in negative tone which was one of the causes behind Hitler's prevention of many thousands of local Catholics to travel out the German Empire. The things which received the most great attention of the press, was the activities of the Polish Primate, August Hlond, during those days, who held mass in Budapest, inaugurated a memorial plaque, travelled to Dorog visiting local miners, participated in different reception sessions and had a big successful speech, which was published in the Polish and Hungarian dailies as well. According to a report of French press, he made a statement about the host country, in which he states “there is a guard tower, in the center of Europe, it still stands against Communism and anti-Christian doctrines.” Primate Hlond inaugurated a church in Szombathely and an altar in Pécs after the end of the Eucharistic Congress in June 1938. Finally, we can conclude, that this international meeting improved, significantly, Hungary status, the large Polish group and the many church
