HIS-Press-Service, 1979 (4. évfolyam, 13-15. szám)
1979-02-01 / 13. szám
HIS Press Service No.13, February 1979 Page 6 Church to maintain a liturgical praxis which deviates from that which has become accepted in the West. A solution which takes into consideration the liturgical practices of the world Church and integrates them into its own would certainly help effectively check and eliminate abuses which touch upon much more basic concerns. The Hungarian episcopacy emphasizes with good reason that pastoral activity is under the charge of the bishop and that there is a necessity for maintaining the relationship of dependency, which is the basis of Church discipline. The type of pastoral care the bishops are interested in eradicating, namely that which functions according to the motto, "Each however he can!", became a "part" of Hungary's Church due to decades of church political turmoil during a time in which the Church was actively persecuted. Earlier it was assumed far too much both in Church and society that the principles of authority and jurisdiction would be strictly respected. After the Second World War, Hungary's priests had to more or less make do without fatherly leadership for decades. If the priests of a diocese had the luck of having a bishop who gave them guidelines for their activity, and worked for the acceptance of these guidelines, this was the exception rather than the rule. For a long period - in many instances it is still the case today - many priests were forced to live with the idea that in exercising their pastoral activity it was necessary to give more attention to the decrees of the State than the regulations of the Church. It must be especially irritating for a priest involved in pastoral care to experience that State directives in pastoral matters are passed on to him through diocesan channels, or that what clearly seems to be a Church disciplinary matter is handled by State agencies or the State Office for Church Affairs as a church political matter. At about the same time as the circular letter of the Bishops Conference was made public, there appeared in the December edition (1978) of the journal "Állam és igazgatás" (The State and Administration), an article by István Straub, the "second highest man" in the State Office for Church Affairs which to an extent expressed ideas similar to those in the bishops' letter. Entitled "Principal Characteristics of Our Church Politics," the article states among other things that "those members of the clergy who seek out illegal approaches unavoidably come into conflict with the lawful order of their Church and our State. Of course, we take a different approach with those whose violation of the legal order stems from overzealousness or thoughtlessness (disobedience of regulations or secluding themselves ) than with those who consciously endeavor to make trouble or cause harm through organized demonstration of a contrary political view or through the use of illegal means."
