HIS-Press-Service, 1982 (7. évfolyam, 22-24. szám)
1982-01-01 / 22. szám
HIS Press Service, No.22, January 1982 Page 3 to a well-documented Protestant study in the area of Church history, "the Hungarian State has no choice but to accept the Vatican and Hungary's Catholic Church as partners in a dialogue. Although the situation of Catholicism in Hungary cannot be described as rosy, it is much less at the mercy of the State than are we as Protestants." The Church's life, which is being directed from above and is taking place within a situation wherein the Church is to some degree at the mercy of the State, has, through the approach of taking "small steps," in any case experienced some : easement of restrictions in the area of pastoral care, while at the same time discovering a number of possibilities for Church renewal in accordance with the guidelines of Vatican II. It is these very possibilities, in fact, that cause both priests and laity to press even harder for an answer to questions regarding the direction to be taken in the future. The statements and measures coming from the country's Church leadership, however, - which itself exhibits signs of internal disharmony - indicate that Hungary's ecclesiastical hierarchy is interested in carrying on Church life within the present framework, and is willing to introduce changes only on a case by case basis, and even then only in the area of externals. There is no ignoring the fact, however, that in the past thirty years Hungary's Church has suffered such grevious setbacks in two essential areas that they are no longer capable of being compensated for. That being the case, it is hard to justify holding to the principle that "everything should continue as it has up to now." Oneof these irretrievable losses consists in the constantly increasing "lack of evangelization" among the post-war generations, which has resulted in an almost total lack of religious knowledge. This lack of knowledge, however, should in no way be equated with lack of interest in religion - though this is what had been hoped for by the educators of the nation's youth, who dutifully did all within their power to distance young people from religion. This vacuum has not been filled, as was hoped for, by a humanistic atheism, but instead at best by disinterest, or by a negative bias toward institutional religion and the official Church, along with a restless search by the youth for an appropriate way to realize their religious aspirations. This search now and then results in various types of individual religiousness which cling to irrational religious forms. The other area - and here the losses are even less capable of being eradicated - is that of the decrease in the number of priests. The number of persons dedicated to the service of the Church has decreased to such a degree that pastoral care in its present form, i.e., the care of existing parishes by appointed priests,
