HIS-Press-Service, 1980 (5. évfolyam, 16-18. szám)
1980-11-01 / 18. szám
HIS Press Service No.18, November 1980 Page 7 unbudging stances which had been taken. For the first time since World War II, Moscow relinquished one of the privileges it had claimed for itself and permitted one of the countries lying within its sphere of influence to maintain direct relations with the Vatican and arrange an agreement with the Holy See without Moscow's intervention. During the final years of the 40's, for example, the governments of countries under Moscow's hegemony were allowed to enter into negotiations and reach agreements only with the leaders of the local Church, i.e., the Church within the confines of their own country. In 1948, an agreement was reached only with the Protestant Churches in Hungary, since the leaders of the Catholic Church insisted that an agreement between Church and State was a matter falling within the jurisdiction of the Holy See. Two years later,Jn 1950, and only through the application of highly repressive measures, was the government able to force the bishops to accept a Church-State agreement. Members of religious orders were deported and, to bring about division withfn the ranks of the clergy, the Priests for Freedom Movement was founded, (see the letter written by the Archbishop of Kalocsa, József Grosz, on 29 August 1950 to József Darvas, the Minister of Education. In: "Uj Ember," 3 September 1950). One cannot speak of a regulation of the relations between Church and State as a result of this agreement. In fact, the repressive measures increased. József Grosz, Archbishop of Kalocsa, who signed the above agreement in the name of the Hungarian Bishops Conference as the representative for the Church authorities, was sentenced 10 months later to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of obviously false charges. Several diocesan seminaries were closed down in 1952. In 1957 a law (Nr. 22/1957) was passed concerning the filling of Church offices. This law reduced to a minimum the authority and decisional rights of the bishops in the internal affairs of the Church. State employees (the so-called "moustached bishops") who controlled the entire activity of the chanceries were placed in the centers of diocesan administration. There was an increase in the restrictions placed on religious instruction. Military service deferments normally granted to all students were done away with for seminarians. Even Secretary of State Miklós admitted in his statement on 3 August 1980 that "mistakes were made" on both sides "during the era of person-centered cultism." It is impossible to overlook the fact that some of these "mistakes" of the Stalin era, which were "harmful consequences of the person-centered cultism," have endured up to the present without any loss of force. Even today, for example, the State places the same value as before upon the surveillance of the episcopal chanceries, the only difference being that this is no longer carried out through civil officials, but rather in a more discreet and secretive manner, namely through the help of collaborating members of the Priests for Freedom Movement. In the atmosphere of the Second Vatican Council and the era of John XXIII and
