HIS-Press-Service, 1982 (7. évfolyam, 22-24. szám)
1982-04-01 / 23. szám
HIS Press Service, Nr.23, April 1982 Page 3 In the course of the partial agreement reached in 1964, this legal regulation was neither recognized by the Vatican, nor was it invalidated by the Hungarian government - and thus continues to remain in force. Due to the inflexibility of Hungary's government regarding changes in this law, since 1964 only persons who are mutually acceptable to both the Holy See and the Hungarian government have been appointed as bishops. It was this uncompromising stance on the part of the government that prevented G. Belon from becoming Diocesan Bishop of Pécs upon the death of that diocese's bishop, Ferenc Rogács, in 1961. The diocese was instead administered by József Cserháti from 1961-1964 as Vicar Capitular, from 1964-1969 as Apostolic Administrator, and since 1969 as Diocesan Bishop of Pécs, Gellert Belon will now assist him as auxiliary Bishop. The present willingness of the State to belatedly allow the "hindered" bishop to assume his rightful position is undoubtedly due to church political considerations: This step eliminates for all practical purposes the often-mentioned fact, which is detrimental to the State's prestige, that the regime originally hindered Belon's episcopal consecration. That Belon was for so long hindered from carrying out episcopal functions is all the more regrettable since he has avoided all politically motivated involvement and has given pastoral matters his undivided attention. Some of the remarks made during an interview which he gave in Hungary for a journalist from the West German Television Network in 1977 are characteristic of his approach: "For several years now we have no longer had religious instruction in the school here, but only in the church. At the beginning of the year, from 1500 children about 300 registered. How many have already been lured away, I don't know, nor can the figure be checked, since such a study is not provided for by existing laws. It is regrettable that religion and peaceful coexistence despite ideological differences are spoken about only in the upper echelons. We too do not want persons lured away from us. As our Primate Lêkai has stated, we are all contributing to socialism, and tell this to our faithful. We respect the conviction and goals of Communism, and wish that they too would respect our religious beliefs. Less important officials on lower levels, however, are even employing administrative means to impose their ideological views. It is my hope that the situation will improve in the future. Humanly speaking, however, this is somewhat difficult to imagine since there are continually fewer priests and we are becoming older. I trust in God. He will have hidden ways of solving this problem too. I notice too that the youth are becoming more interested in religion."
