Discriminative curtailment of state contribution to the Church – Hungarian bishops take legal action

Violating the constitutional rights of the Church as well as the international agreement signed with the Holy See, the Hungarian government has curtailed the supplementary contribution to the Church by cca 10 percent as compared to the budget of the previous year. The government keeps students of Church schools in a state of existential insecurity, which is discrimination, since these students are the children of Hungarian citizens – Cardinal Péter Erdő emphasized at the press conference. The Conference will take legal actions – he added.

It was also pointed out that a recent government decision has prohibited teaching at nursery schools unless the teacher has a special nursery school teachers degree. This leads to finishing off nursery school religious education from 2010, a situation which is against the law of public education.

Referring to the catastrophe in Haiti, Cardinal Péter Erdő informed the press that after an immediate aid of 100 000 dollars had been sent by the Hungarian Catholic Church to the victims of the earthquake, 0.5 million more dollars were collected from donations, and would be sent to the Nunciature of the Dominican Republic for distribution.

Among other issues mentioned at the press conference were: food collection in churches for needy families, to be organized by the Catholic Caritas in March; and Days of Hungarian Culture, a national cultural program to be organized by the Bishops' Conference in October.

Magyar Kurír