HIS-Press-Service, 1977 (2. évfolyam, 5-8. szám)
1977-04-01 / 5. szám
HIS Press Service, April 1977 Page 5 of the things which are still lacking or neglected, or of the tasks awaiting us in the future." In other words, since statistics stemming from appropriate surveys were not available, the joint preparation of the reports submitted to Rome was used to achieve an agreement among the bishops on certain factors which can be characterized as typical for the situation of the Church in Hungary. This was made necessary by the fact that the bishops do not have any statistical material compiled through regular surveys at their disposal - material upon which they could have based their statements and which could have been objectively checked out. The only sources of information available to the bishops are those stemming from their personal experience; it is this information gathered by them during their activities as heads of their dioceses that they can draw upon. It is in the light of this situation that the words of József Cserháti, Bishop of Pécs, must be understood. In connection with a discussion on the life of the clergy in Hungary, he said in the Hungarian Catholic press in 1972: "Estimations and (statistical) statements are out of place here; it is only the heads of the dioceses who can give exact and detailed information." No matter how extensive these personal experiences referred to by Bishop Cserháti in the above quote, and which are used by the bishops in compiling their reports, may be, they nevertheless do have their limitations. It is not only the problems of subjectivity and blindness to the facts of ones own operation that creep in here, but even moreso the fact that getting an overview of the situation in Hungary's Church is generally an extremely difficult problem for the bishops. Certain Church information, for example, can only be obtained from state agencies. This is the case for information concerning the amount of supplementary income (congrua) individual priests receive from the state. It is again only the state that knows which priests of those able to produce recognized authorization for the exercise of their priestly activities are actually allowed to give religious instruction in the schools. The incompleteness present in the basic statistical data of the Church can be clearly seen in the new statistical tables (Schematismus) of the Hungarian dioceses. In one of these tables, for example, the number of the faithful stands at the same level as in 1949 (The reason for this is simply that the new official state census did not include a survey of confessional membership and internal Church estimates are arbitrary and unexact.). Another table gave the number of the faithful, rounded off to the nearest hundred, on the basis of the size of the contribution designated for each parish by the Diocesan Office for Contributions through the use of a predetermined allotment plan.
