Hungary, tough recovery” “

Hungary, the Catholic press and Europe: these are the main issues discussed at the European symposium of the IUCP, the International Union of the Catholic Press, held in the Hungarian capital on 19 and 20 March. It was attended by some sixty journalists from France, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Poland, even from India, Japan, Argentina and Iraq. At the end of the meeting a general assembly was held; it appointed as the new president of IUCP-Europe the Frenchman Didier Robiliard, who heads the culture and religion department of Bayard Presse: together with a new executive, he will better define the organization of IUCP at the European level. Below we present a report on Hungary’s entry into the EU, as part of our review of the ten new EU members due to join on 1st May; we have already presented Cyprus, Poland, Malta and Slovenia (cf. Sir nos.14-15-18-20/2004). Hungary has a population of some 10 million, of whom 63.1% are Catholics, 25.5% Protestants. There are 16 dioceses, 2223 parishes, 1946 priests and 557 religious. There are 197 Catholic charities and 194 Catholic schools. A WOUNDED SOCIETY IS SEARCH OF A CURE. Hungarian society is “a wounded society, in need of a cure from the ills of forty years of Soviet domination, which have left a legacy of egoism, apathy, indifference and loneliness among the people”. That’s the bleak diagnosis made by the sociologist MIKLOS TOMKA, professor at the Catholic University of Pàzmàny Peter in Budapest (founded only two years ago). What emerges from his analysis is the picture of “a society adrift” in spite of re-won freedom and democracy: “Individuals think only of themselves and not of the common good. Human relations have been weakened, and we still don’t have any genuine civil society”. The legacy of a regime that prohibited traditions, and imposed “strong indoctrination against religious values in schools, has generated attitudes of nihilism and the disappearance of solidarity. It has also led to an increase in alcoholism, divorce and suicide”. In this situation of “negative modernity” – Tomka’s term – the way out is to “gain awareness and redouble our efforts to propagate the values of solidarity and civil conscience”. THE TASK AND PROBLEMS OF THE MASS MEDIA. This is a task not only for the Church, but also for the Church-run media, of which there are some thirty in the whole of the country, an output “unsatisfactory as a whole – said SZABOLES SAJGo, vice-president of the Hungarian Association of Catholic Journalists – due to a traditional and obsolete approach that distances the media from the ordinary life of people”. One hope of overcoming this problem is “an effort being made to coordinate the Catholic media – added Sajgo – and also the birth of a new Catholic radio station, which we hope may become a forum for intellectuals”. But even the lay mass media in Hungary (some 2000 publications) do not enjoy a better situation, victims as they are of “unregulated privatization, also by foreign proprietors”, explained ANDRÀS KOLTAY, professor at the Catholic University of Pazmany Peter. “A curious situation is taking shape in this sense: publishers that own right-wing papers in the West are here financing the left-wing press. This brings home to us that their sole interest is profit”. PREPARING FOR ENTRY INTO EUROPE. Hungarian society seems “divided” about the imminent prospect of entry into the European Union (on 1st May), as Father LASZLO LUKACS, director of the Sapientia University in Budapest, explained: “There are extreme nationalist groups that don’t want Hungary to enter Europe. The Church, at least officially, supports EU membership, even though the bishops say they are worried about possible Western influences”, and not only of cultural type. Father Lukacs has denounced the assault of foreign investors who have come to Hungary “like colonizers, thanks to cheap labour; they include Parmalat, Volkswagen, and French and British firms, that have enriched themselves disproportionately”. Lukacs also spoke of the oppressive legacy of the past that needs to be overcome (“people were used to being surrounded by spies, secret police and informers; so many were forced to compile reports even on their own friends and relations”). This went so far that “people were living in a kind of daily prison, where paradoxically going to prison for crimes of opinion meant finding oneself in better company”. With the fall of the Soviet Union, observed Lukacs, “we received the gift of freedom but also many illusions”: “The first lesson to learn is that democracy is not just a gift from heaven but a tough apprenticeship”. In this situation the Church too, in a minority position, “must find a new language in catechesis and public life, to find points of encounter with science and culture and get out of its own ghetto”.