HIS-Press-Service, 1976 (1. évfolyam, 1. szám)
1976 / 1. szám
HIS Press Service, An Review of 1976 Page 9 Not too long ago the question of organizations of the faithful again came up in connection with the formation of community groups and for a while it seemed that, despite the improvement in Church-State relations, a new round of trials of priests and faithful was in the offing. Luckily, this proved not to be the case. The State agencies, at least to an extent, officially recognized the Church character of these organizations and, instead of beginning criminal prosecutions against these groups, made the Church authorities responsible for them. The statement of the Bishops Conference reminded the faithful of the bishops' teaching and Church-disciplinary responsibilities and asked them to follow the general directives of the Hungarian Church when forming groups on their own initiative: "We who have taken upon ourselves the responsibility-laden service of being successors to the apostles ask, therefore, that you (the community groups) always listen to the guiding words of the official Church leaders, since these words - and of this all can rest assured- stem from love and interest in promoting the common good of the Church." What is unfortunate, however, is the fact that such efforts for the betterment of the Church infrastructure are not a notable characteristic of the Hungarian Church. A recent centralistic episcopal decision demonstrates a different tone. In the Bishops' meeting of December 1976, a reorganization of the Church press service, "Magyar Kurir," was decided upon. In the future, the "Magyar Kurir," which works on a small budget and emphasizes conscientious journalistic activity, will become the semi-official press voice of the Hungarian College of Bishops. It will be under the control of the Secretariate of the Hungarian College of Bishops and will provide Hungary with Church news. For other countries, it was decided, a tri-lingual edition will be published every two months. There is no way around the fact that, on the one hand, this new reorganization will lead to a constant interference in journalistic activity and that, on the other, the paper can hardly expect any help or qualitative improvement as a result of this decision. Another disadvantage is that the above-mentioned present head of the Secretariate of the Hungarian College of Bishops has no journalistic training. The niveau of the "Magyar Kurir" would stand a better chance of improvement were it to be hooked up with the telex network set up by the Roman CIC (Centrum Informationis Catholicum), the central office of the Catholic press service. The Austrian Kathpress, the Swiss KIPA, the Dutch ANP, and the West German KNA already make use of this telex system, which means that they are constantly in touch both with one another and with the general office in Rome. With the use of this new technology, a modern Church news service was brought into existence. A project calling for a Hungarian Church news service in Western languages is of course a welcome idea - although foreign-language news services which report on
