Megyetörténet. Egyház- és igazgatástörténeti tanulmányok a veszprémi püspökség 1009. évi adománylevele tiszteletére - A Veszprém Megyei Levéltár kiadványai 22. (Veszprém, 2010)

Tanulmányok a veszprémi egyházmegye történetéről - Gárdonyi Máté: Huszadik századi kihívások, pasztorációs útkeresések A VESZPRÉMI EGYHÁZMEGYÉBEN

Huszadik századi kihívások, pasztorációs útkeresés a veszprémi egyházmegyében

his main task was to modernise the network of parishes, thus, despite the struggles of the war, 34 parishes or chapelries came into existence within a short time. László Bánáss (1945-1949) followed this schema as well as Bertalan Badalik (1949-1965), hence the number of independent pastoral stalls increased to 353, whereas it had been 226 at the beginning of the century.

Parallel to this development, the communist party started to undermine the social influence of the church, which in other words meant the obtrusive liquidation of the positive initiations of the interval between the two world wars. Catholic societies were proscribed, 568 elementary and 6 secondary schools in the diocese were nationalised in 1948, which was followed by the nationalisation of hospitals and other social institutions. Monastic orders were dissolved and church properties were nationalised in 1950, and the Seminar of Veszprém was also closed down in 1952. It was by administrative measures and intimidation that catecheses was confined. All this resulted in that pastoration was confined to the narrowest parish-life, so to say communist dictatorship forced the church to the sacristy.

Bishops made efforts to provide occupation for monks within the diocese, therefore the number of priests reached its extremity: there are as much as 520 priests were enlisted in the Schematism of 1963. This meant that practically all parishes and chaplancies were occupied. Two things must be emphasised here: this must have been, on the one hand, a service exclusively of sacraments, and, on the other hand, this represented a special occasion. The number of active priests decreased rapidly thereafter, whereas the number of parishes officially remained the same: by 1992, the dismembration of the diocesis, the number of clergymen dropped to one half that of 1963 and 45% of parishes were unoccupied. The number of seminarists also fell: 82 ordinands enrolled to the Seminar in 1949, whereas only 15 did so in 1992.

Priests’ scope of duties and lifestyles changed as well. The change of regime undoubtedly brought freedom for the church and governmental tutoring terminated eventually. The process of restauration, however, can be characterised as limited, as some monastic communities and schools restarted their work in the diocese and certain buildings got back to the management of the church. The most important of them is the theological academy and seminar. Concerning the life of the parishes, in the most important field, however, restauration cannot be observed (apart from renovating buildings), not exclusively because of the lack of clergymen, but also due to the fact that in order to be more effective, the 2nd Council of Vatican required a less clerical model of church.

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