HIS-Press-Service, 1980 (5. évfolyam, 16-18. szám)
1980-02-01 / 16. szám
HIS Press Service No.16, February 1980 Page 10 at this time and a side entrance must be used. This sort of casuistic offers vast possibilities for all types of State intervention; one of the preferred "parlor games" in this area is the constantly varying designation of the distinction between - allowed - religious instruction and - forbidden - religious propaganda. If, for example, a pupil skips religious instruction classes in the school, which are recognized as officially permitted religious instruction, no attempt by the religion teacher to get the child to attend class again is allowed - since that is considered an act of religious propaganda and is thus forbidden. In justifying the Church political practices described above, reference is made to the principle laid down in the Hungarian constitution of "common interpretation on the one hand, of freedom of conscience and, on the other, of the free exercise of religion." According to this principle, religion may not be exercised in a manner which influences others in their freedom to be either areligious or to separate themselves from religion. On the other hand, the materialistic ideology has the advantages of an alldeterminative State "religion": According to the educational laws which went into effect in the school year 1978/79, this ideology is to be taught within the framework of all educational subjects. A good knowledge of it is a prerequisite both of university acceptance and for advancement in many fields of employment. It is propagated by the mass media, by non-school forms of popular education, etc. The battle against religion was for a long time carried on through administrative means. Among the civil servants involved in the concrete tasks of Church politics, there are still today a number of persons who support the radical approach of the past and are unable to adapt to the more tolerant Church politics of the present, or are unable to fathom how the new course in Church politics will manage to bring about the elimination of religion through the mutual development of socialism rather than through administrative suppression of the Church. They cannot see how the common participation of believers and nonbelievers in the development of socialism - in line with the Hegelian motto, "Swimming has to be learned in water." - is to function as a "socialistic training course" which also extends to the area of faith, or how the rejection of religion is to come about as a secondary product, as a result of the transformation effected in the areas of feeling, thinking, and practical activity (cf. J.Lukács, Socialism and the Critique of Religion). It even happens that the State Office for Church Affairs protects the exercise of religion against encroachments by such over zealous civil servants, since such negative administrative state action is presently considered harmful rather than beneficial.
