“Year after year Hungarian Catholics are ever-more generous in their donations to Catholic schools, because it’s clear also to them that our institutions suffer from a serious disadvantage in the system of state contributions”, declared Bishop Pápai Lajos, delegate for schools of the Hungarian Bishops’ Conference, on the occasion of the annual collection in churches on 25 February. The collection last year amounted to a sum equivalent to 380,000 euros, 16,000 euros more than in the previous year. Between 1950 and 1990, during the Communist regime, only 8 Catholic schools were considered legal in Hungary, out of a population of over 10 million inhabitants, the majority Catholic. After the fall of Communism, the reconstruction of the Catholic school system began, and now the Church is responsible for 4% of education in the state sector with 65 nursery schools, 100 primary, 56 senior secondary, 34 technical and 54 boarding schools. The Catholic Church also devotes attention to the integration of the gipsy minority through education. Altogether 65,000 children are being educated in Catholic institutions by 5277 teachers, including 212 priests.
