HIS-Press-Service, 1980 (5. évfolyam, 16-18. szám)
1980-02-01 / 16. szám
HIS Press Service No.16, February 1980 Page 5 countries___The common good served by State authority is not achieved in its fullness until the rights of all citizens are protected. A situation where this is not the case will lead to a collapse of society. (It) results in the rebellion of citizens against the (ruling) authority, or a state of repression, intimidation, force, and terror of which the numerous totalitarian regimes of our century have been examples___The right to freedom of religion and conscience is justifiably included among these rights.... The Church does not lay claim to a privilege, but rather to an elementary right." (Encyclical "Redemptor Hominis" (The Redeemer of Man"), 17). The present Church politics of Hungary views and evaluates - evidently on the basis of accepted Marxian criticism of religion and on political party principles -the role of the Churches, and of religion in general, from the standpoint of political usefulness. Since Marxism views religion as a form of human alienation which is destined to die out through the restructuring of society, the function of the Churches too can be considered only temporary. Imre Miklós has clearly stated the areas in which the Churches can, or should be, useful: In that they actively participate in the development of socialism, they promote the (inner and foreign political) interests of the State. He is thus less concerned with guaranteeing the individual and societal rights of man than with bringing to its fullness the Communism based on dialectical and historical materialism, on radical atheism. Hungarian Church politics accuses Hungary's Catholic Church of having played a direct political role in promoting the previous social order, and also of having been a beneficiary of the injustices of the past. Official Church politics emphasizes the justification and necessity which existed for the separation of Church and State, and at the same time insists that the Church today - under the new State form - should again assume a political role and participate in carrying out internal and external political aims set up by the country's political leadership. State insistence upon the principle of political usefulness, and special services and positions which have been forcefully elicited from the Church, have had harmful effects upon Church life, since they lead to confusion in the Church's understanding of itself, which in turn fosters conflicts. They weaken and hinder the Church in the mission to which it has been called, namely that of preaching the Gospel and giving witness to Christ within the given social order. The Church's adaptation to its new role, and its involvement in the "development of socialism" takes place within a framework of coercion and constant interference on the part of the State. The State has at its disposal two institutions which - with the help of a large
