HIS-Press-Service, 1979 (4. évfolyam, 13-15. szám)
1979-02-01 / 13. szám
HIS Press Service No'13, February 1979 Page 7 The Second Vatican Council raised various already existing efforts which stemmed from the "lower level," i.d., which had gradually become crystal ized through experiences made in the area of pastoral care, to the level of official rules and guidelines for the direction of the renewed Church; this approach is also valid for Hungary's Church. After the introduction of religious instruction as an elective in the schools, the State disqualified all other forms of religious instruction by terming them "illegal religious instruction." It is due to the perserverance of the assistant priests and the parents that the pastoral care of children through religious instruction in the churches, which was long termed "illegal," finally became institutionalized as church religions instruction. The State agencies responsible for Church affairs do not deny the existence of still unsolved questions concerning the Church and State, questions which are awaiting a negotiated solution. Justified demands which arise in the area of pastoral care could - as in the case of church religious instruction - be met with the help of the bishops by modifying existing regulations in such a way as to make lawful those solutional approaches which have already been tried by those active in pastoral care. The greater the willingness of the bishops to present such requests to the State agencies and campaign for their acceptance, so much the stronger will be the trust placed in them by the clergy, and all the less frequently will there arise in the field of pastoral activity approaches which have the appearance of illegality and arouse the suspicions of the State agencies; this would also make it much easier to drop many experiments which have proven fruitless. If one considers both of the letters sent to those involved in the pastoral care of Hungary's Catholic Church, one comes to the conclusion that the circular letter of the Hungarian bishops to their priests is by far the more concrete of the two, and thus deals more specifically with actual difficulties, than does the letter of the Sovereign Pontiff to his Hungarian co-workers. Both letters express an honest willingness to carry out the tasks entrusted to them by Christ for the benfit of the faithful. The letter of the Pope offers both Hungary's bishops and the priests active in pastoral work reason for believing that they will not be left to their own means in seeing a solution to their problems. Please send us a copy of the publications or articles in which information from HIS Press Service is used. Published by the Hungarian Institute for Sociology of Religion /HIS/ - President: Bishop Stefan László, D.D., Eisenstadt - Editorial Board: Emeric András, Ph.0./Vienna/, Julius Morel, Ph.D /Innsbruck/, Julianna Ujváry M.A. /Vienna/. - A—I 140 Wien, Linzer Str. 263/18, Phone /0 22 2/ 94 21 89. Österr.Postsparkassenkto. 7739 006. Eigentümer, Herausgeber und Verleger: Ungarisches Kirchensoziologisches Institut. Für den Inhalt verantwortlich: Dr.Emmerich András. Beide: A-II40 Wien, Linzer Str. 263/18. Druck: OffsetschneI Idruck Anton Riegelnik, A-1080 Piaristengasse 19.
