Overcoming mistrust

The relation between Hungarian society and the process of European unification is contradictory. For many Hungarians, financial conditions are deteriorating. Not only the uneducated, but also the middle class – health workers, teachers, families with two or more children – do not perceive any improvements in their quality of life. This general feeling among people at large is also intensified by the fact that the economic austerity is justified by the belt-tightening imposed by the European Union. Nor should we underestimate the fact that the ideological dictatorship of past decades has created mistrust in many people and uncertainties about moral questions. Moral values or questions important for a united Europe – the moral and ethical aspects of scientific research or the reinforcement and role of society in democratic life – are recalled ever less frequently. All this is for many a confirmation of the perception that the European Union is nothing but an economic community in which the economically stronger dictate the law. So, absorbed as they are by the struggle to make ends meet, most people are not really interested in the successes or difficulties of united Europe.In contrast to this generally indifferent or pessimistic approach, there is a minority that, in spite of difficulties and frustrations, believes that Europe is a community not just of interests, but also of values: a theme that is very close to the heart of the Churches and for which they feel themselves responsible. Not by chance, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Catholic Church, in collaboration with the Pontifical Council for Culture, held a conference on just this question in Budapest last December. On that occasion, the President of the Academy said that the greatest problem for the world today is not of an economic, but of a moral order. Even if no serious social debate on the safeguarding of European values exists in Hungary, the Catholic Church is working to raise the awareness of the population about their importance. The National Year of Prayer, proclaimed in 2006, represented an attempt to raise people’s awareness about the need for forgiveness and reconciliation. In 2007 the Catholic Church has concentrated on the life and apostolate of St. Elisabeth of Arpad, who is venerated not only in Hungary, but also in the German-speaking area, with initiatives that drew attention to merciful and altruistic love, to the beauty of family life, to love between man and woman, to the acceptance of children – all this in a society in which, as in other European countries, we are witnessing a constant decrease in the population and an ever greater number of marriage breakdowns.So the Christians of Hungary consider Europe a community of values, even if experience often demonstrates the contrary. It must also be recognized that Christians – or at least those who really practice their own faith and live in conformity with it – constitute a minority and are often passive. They too are burdened by the problems of daily life, or else they don’t have the courage to defend their own principles or struggle for important values such as life, the defence of the family, and charitable service to the poor and the needy.However, there do exist some people – and let’s hope their number is growing, especially among the young – who are breaking with this, so to say, passive attitude, and thus helping to make Europe become truly similar to the vision of those who signed the Treaty of Rome, i.e. the founding fathers of the Europe.