HIS-Press-Service, 1985 (8. évfolyam, 26-28. szám)
1985-02-01 / 28. szám
HIS Press Service No.28, February 1985 Page 11 "neither believers nor non-believers", most of whom cannot be categorised as belonging to any ideology at all. State Secretary Imre Miklós designates them as the "neither nor group". Most of these are undecided, egoistic people who are only concerned about their own material wellfare, going through life without any ideals, addicted to practical materialism; since they themselves are neither religious nor are they materialists, they do not demand religious freedom, - on the contrary, they reject the ideals and principles of religion and socialism alike. The government admits that such people are even less suitable for a committed engagement in the building up of socialism than religiously-minded persons who have the kind of qualities that cannot be done without in the setting-up of socialism; however, the State will not allow the Church to try and recruit the souls of these undecided people; the "ordered conditions" as they put it, may not be disturbed through religious propaganda, which could even affect the freedom of religion, - or rather, the "freedom of non-religion". The fundamental principle of "being ordered" is that everything that is not explicitly "regulated" is forbidden. The regulations may be relatively generous in certain respects, but they have to be very strictly and exactly adhered to. Thus, for example, it is possible for a college club to organise a discussion on religion and invite theologians, priests etc. to give talks on the subject, but the Church itself is not allowed to organise anything of the kind. Via the mass media virtually only materialistically orientated information is offered on religious topics, (history of religion, practices of the religious life). A striking example of this was the 32-part broadcast series, "World of the Bible" which, in accordance with the general wish, was not only repeated but was even brought out in book-form too, (100.000 copies) and in a very short time was out of print. The non-religious public opinion celebrated this as a great "religious event". Likewise managed by the State and thereby materialistically orientated is the telephone advisory service on psychical matters. While the Protestant churches, within a limited scope, have the possibility of offering a pastoral service by telephone, the Catholic Church is not allowed to have anything similar. The Catholic Church virtually has to do without the use of modern means of communication for the purposes of evangelization. The Church can therefore only exert her influence through her own communities, and has more or less adapted herself to this and tries to do justice to her task within the scope of the possibilities still open to her. It was already hinted at a number of times in the national press that it would actually be quite good to set up religious competition to the ineffective materialist propaganda which, in its exclusive control, had stagnated into self-complacency; thus more life and dynamics would be infused into the spreading of materialist propaganda, and those people who had not yet bound themselves
