HIS-Press-Service, 1980 (5. évfolyam, 16-18. szám)
1980-11-01 / 18. szám
HIS Press Service No.18, November 1980 Page 8 Paul VI, the Church began to exhibit an ever greater degree of openness. Contacts in the form of dialogues were made with non-Christian religious groups and even with atheists. The entire church politics of the Vatican came to be characterized by an "opening" of itself to the world. The new "Ostpolitik" of the Vatican strove to find a "modus vivendi" for the Hungarian Church too, and in these strivings went so far as to take the initiative in bringing about negotiations with the Hungarian government. It is not the first time in the course of history that the Church found itself in a situation where, recognizing things for what they were, it carried on a "Realpolitik," i.e., it compromised to some extent. The partial agreement reached between the Vatican and the Hungarian government in 1964 was such a compromise. The expression "partial agreément" is to be taken literally since, in addition to the agreement^which only contained a few points, a protocol was drawn up which contained a number of unresolved matters. The contents of this protocol were never made public. On the basis of the partial agreement reached in 1964, two meetings - one in Rome and the other in Budapest - take place annually between representatives of the Holy See and the Hungarian government. Actually, these negotiations do not resolve much more than the clarification of "personnel matters," i.e., agree ment is reached from time to time on new episcopal appointments. Gradually, however, a politics of "small steps" and the so-called "Hungarian way" is becoming apparent, the latter being the designation one might give to the present approach to regulating matters involving the relationship between Church and State. Although this arrangement has undoubtedly been of advantage to Hungary's Church in some ways, at the same time, however - since it is a compromise - it has left a great deal of room for State interference. The model of the "Hungarian way" is already beginning to be viewed in the "Ostblock" countries as a type of ideal approach. As a result of this method's success, Moscow recommends it to those socialist countries which have not yet succeeded in regulating their relations with the local Churches (e.g., Czechoslovakia, Vietnam). The "Hungarian way" ha? become a socialistic export which is lauded even by the atheistic publication "Nauka i religija." The Hungarian and the Polish Ways The election of Karol Wojtyla in October 1978 as the new pope caused considerable agitation both within circles of Hungarian church politicians and also among Hungarian Church leaders. It is well-known that the Polish Church demonstrated much less willingness to compromise than did Hungary's, one of the reasons for this being of course that the Communist takeover took place under completely different circumstances in the two countries, as some of the factors involved make obvious:
