Re-motivating the laity

A “useful” exchange to promote the circulation of “new ideas” to “jointly identify new paths” for pastoral care. Msgr. Nándor Bosák, bishop of Debrecen-Nyíregyháza, drew a positive balance of the experience of the 26th Colloquium of European Parishes, (CEP) held in Nyíregyháza, Hungary, July 17 to 22. The meeting, that was opened with the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in Greek-Catholic rite, closed with a Eucharistic celebration in the Catholic cathedral of Christian rite, which faithfully mirrors the situation of the dioceses, with a population of some 250 thousand inhabitants, of which 15% are Latin-Catholics, 25% Greek-Catholics and 55% Protestants. There are 55 parishes and 80 priests. The diocese was established 18 years ago and Msgr. Bosák has served as its pastor since then. Simona Mengascini interviewed him for SIR Europe during the CEP meeting in Hungary. Msgr. Bosák, the seat for this year’s CEP was chosen also to provide the possibility to East and West European parishes to meet. What differences or common elements are there between the churches of the two parts of the continent? “The main difference between our Church and the West European Church is that we lack the structures, the consolidated traditions, and few of our lay people are engaged. During Communist dictatorship even though the churches hadn’t been closed and parishioners were free to attend Mass service, there was a strong external pressure and control which discouraged the faithful. Conversely, today our society is experiencing a high level of secularization and it appears that the laity is no longer motivated”.Which are the main problems you had to face after the fall of the Wall and the collapse of the Communist regime? “At the beginning, when the diocese was founded in 1993, the most important thing was to try to involve the laity in the life of the church. Thus we were fully engaged in education and in the formation of collaborators, catechists and acolytes. Another urgent pastoral need of that early period and of today is the education of youth who have been given no theological, religious or moral formation. Ensuing the political changes the churches had the opportunity of running the schools and this for us is a very important achievement, as religious, moral and ethical education is not part of public schools programs”. However the new Constitution, promulgated past April, acknowledged the role of Christianity in the “preservation” of the nation, and this is not a minor achievement… “That is true. But for us it’s important to form a new ruling class endowed with grounded values, since the public realm is entirely based on the values of secularism and people are indifferent. Nonetheless, approximately 30% of all Catholics want the sacraments today while 10-15% regularly attend Sunday Mass”.How are the relations with the Greek-Catholic church in general and with the other churches present at local level? “Cooperation with the Greek-Catholic church is very good, apart from specific cases determined by temperamental aspects. Just to give and example, in some countries the Latin and Greek -rite communities use the same church and carry out their activity together, for example catechism. Ecumenism is successfully ongoing also with Protestants, and in the end the churches today, in the Hungarian society, experience the same problems. How are the current relations with West-European churches, if this definition still makes sense?“We acknowledge their support, also in material terms, that was extremely significant during the Communist period. But today we are experiencing the same problems, and perhaps the Churches in the Western area of Europe are experiencing an even worse crisis. For instance, as relates to vocations, they are a problem for us, but they’re not decreasing at the same pace of other European countries. Our new priests are young, and in eighteen years of existence of this diocese the overall number of priests has remained low but unaltered”.