A Waiting Church

Like all Communist regimes, Hungary has a Secretariat for Religious Affairs, which is entrusted with the surveillance and ultimately the liquidation of churches and religious beliefs. In a recent interview, Secretary of Religious Affairs Imre Miklòs announced that the churches’ task was to play a positive role in spreading the socialist-humanist spirit, in encouraging good work habits, in discouraging crime, and in promoting ecological concerns and the struggle for world peace. Not a word on faith or Christian morality.

There is nothing new in a Marxist official’s stating such views; the tragedy is that Hungary’s 11 bishops, including Msgr. Lékai, the cardinal primate, also subscribe to the secretary’s agenda. (When a Catholic magazine recently asked its readers to write about the significance of the Eucharist in their personal lives, one bishop, reading the answers, commented: “What? These idiots still believe this nonsense?”

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Thomas Molnar

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Religious Persecution

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Religion

Like all Communist regimes, Hungary has a Secretariat for Religious Affairs, which is entrusted with the surveillance and ultimately the liquidation of churches and religious beliefs. In a recent interview, Secretary of Religious Affairs Imre Miklòs announced that the churches’ task was to play a positive role in spreading the socialist-humanist spirit, in encouraging good work habits, in discouraging crime, and in promoting ecological concerns and the struggle for world peace. Not a word on faith or Christian morality.

There is nothing new in a Marxist official’s stating such views; the tragedy is that Hungary’s 11 bishops, including Msgr. Lékai, the cardinal primate, also subscribe to the secretary’s agenda. (When a Catholic magazine recently asked its readers to write about the significance of the Eucharist in their personal lives, one bishop, reading the answers, commented: “What? These idiots still believe this nonsense?”