Folia Theologica et Canonica 5. 27/19 (2016)

SACRA THEOLOGIA - Szabolcs Anzelm Szuromi, O.Praem., Cardinal Mindszenty and the Hungarian bishops against the communist dictatorship (1947-1974)

76

SZABOLCS ANZELM SZUROMI, O.PRAHM.

had become a key instrument in the hand of the communist regime to create more vulnerable social circumstances for the Church.*

István Mészáros has published his extraordinary important documentary volume in 1989 on the fighting process of independence of ecclesiastical schools in Hungary, which ended on June 16lh 1948 with the Law 33/1948. This memorable work collecting the documents and their analysis under the title: Mind- szenty and Ortutay7 Gyula Ortutay (11978) was minister of religion and education in Hungary between 1947 and 1950.'" Mészáros quoted Archbishop József Grosz’ sentence of September 30,h 1945: “The Hungarian school must give to God which is His.”8 9 * 11 This can be the motto which motivated the Bishop Conference, including Cardinal Mindszenty during the entire debate. The canonical basis of the Hungarian Bishop Conference’s argumentation was crystal- clear, which laid on Pope Pius XI’s (1922-1939) Encyclical letter Divini illius magistri (December 31w 1929) about the right of Catholic parents to educate their children in ecclesiastical school, following freely - real religious freedom! - their own faith, which is recognized by the state.12 Citing article 57 of this document: "Besides every Christian child or youth has a strict right to instruction in harmony with the teaching of the Church, the pillar and ground of truth. And whoever disturbs the pupil’s Faith in any way, does him grave wrong, inasmuch as he abuses the trust which children place in their teachers, and takes unfair advantage of their inexperience and of their natural craving for unrestrained liberty, at once illusory and false.”13 In the school year of 1946/ 1947 the statistic of the catholic educational institutes was the following: kindergarten 193 of 1246; folks and primary school 1216 + 1669 (2885) of 7016; high school 48 of 173.14 The Bishop Conference had criticized and protested expressively against the suppression of the mandatory catechism and against the secularization of the entire ecclesiastical educational system. On March 17lh 1947 Card. Mindszenty himself categorically refused that false statement of the competent ministry that the Catholic Church had accepted the proposal of the optional catechism. The state regulation - violating the independent status of the Church, the declared religious freedom, and the obligatory internal law of the Catholic Church (means: canon law) - had become promulgated on March 3Tl 1947.15 The central question — even the debate on the catechism had been con8 In detailed: Beke, M., Az Esztergomi (Esztergom-Budapesti) Főegyházmegye papsága, 1892- 2006, Budapest 2008. 496-499. especially 496^197.

9 Mészáros, I., Mindszenty és Ortutay. Iskolatörténeti vázlat: 1945-1948, Budapest 1989.

111 Cf. Ortutay, Gy„ Napló, I—II. Budapest 2009.

11 Mészáros, I., Mindszenty és Ortutay, 30.

12 Pius XI, Litt. Ene. Divini illius magistri (31 dec. 1929): AAS 22 ( 1930) 49-86.

13 Pius XI, Litt. Ene.. Divini illius magistri (31 dec. 1929): AAS 22 ( 1930) 52.

14 Mészáros, L, Mindszenty és Ortutay, 51.

15 Mészáros. !.. Mindszenty és Ortutay, 82-83.