Kissing the ring

While the pope, XVI. Benedict is busy touring Britain this week, the week before he received the Hungarian president, Pál Schmitt, whom elderly non-Hungarians may know from his carreer in fencing a couple of dacades ago. Later, at the beginning of the 1980s, he made a career in sports diplomacy (being the head of the Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB) also at the time when the committee decided to boycott the Olympic Games in 1984), and in hotellerie: he was the managing director of the Hotel Astoria in Budapest. About 10 years ago, he became a face of Fidesz, and they -- having won 2/3s of the seats in parliament by receving 53% of the votes --  made him president (which is more or less a representative function, and even Schmitt's critics agree that he is a handsome clothes hanger).
Anyway, he's visited the pope on September 10th, and the two of them had a look at various European countries' constitutions, found out that in 8 of them the church is explicitly included, and Schmitt 'proudly announced ' (these were his words) that 'if everything goes well, Hungary will become the ninth'. They also agreed on the importance of Hungarian minorities having priests speaking Hungarian, and according to Schmitt, the pope said he is well aware of this problem. Other topics were the financing of Hungarian church schools, and the EU presidency of Hungary starting next January. According to Schmitt, the pope even mentioned how much he appreciated that the Remonstrances of Saint Stephen, king of Hungary to his son, Imre (who was later canonised, as his father was) are availabe on the president's homepage.
The Vatican's Osservatore Romano also mentioned the visit, but in much less detail.

As good catholic, the president of course kissed the pope's ring:
http://index.hu/belfold/2010/09/10/scmitt_pal_jelentett_a_papanak/
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XN_d61Bp0EsJ:www.vatican.va/news_services/or/or_quo/text.html%3Ft%3D1284134603187+pal+schmitt+site:vatican.va&cd=1&hl=hu&ct=clnk&gl=hu

Anomymous experts

The highest official for education, secretary of state Rózsa Hoffmann (who became famous for starting her job with cancelling the newly intorduced prescription that kindergarden should not reinforce stereotypes, including gender stereotypes), intends to make a new law on education and higher education. To this aim, she organised a secret experts meeting in August, and the group of experts has already prepared a blueprint for the main issues - a 43-pager for primary and secondary education, while the tertiary sector got 9 pages. FigyelőNet got a copy of it.
While there are positive suggestions such as improving teacher training, increasing the time children have to psent at school, and having more sports lessons, there are some disputable ideas, such as the one saying preference should be given to other languages than English - instead of English, not along with it (let's be realistic: nowadays, if you have a BA, you won't get a job with at least some English).
While according to the blueprints, the direct state subventions for schools maintained by the local governments are to be increased to 90% of the total cost, these subsidies will amount to 100% in the case of faith schools.
The members of the experts' group are held secret (accodring to the ministry, the membes do not receive any money, and some of them don't want to have their names disclosed) by the ministry, but according to FigyelőNet 'compared to the fact that faiths schools tot up to about seven percent of the sector, faiths schools are -- to put it mildy - overrepresented in the shaping of the strategy dealing with the hole system.' The somwhat piqant part is that though the minister is a member of both Fidesz and KDNP, Fidesz's experts are not involved in the preparation. Or in other words: a party that would get around 1% of the votes if they had to run independently of Fidesz is shaping edcuation accodring to their private agenda.
http://www.fn.hu/belfold/20100906/nemzeti_egyuttmukodes_fidesz_nelkul/

A truly ecumenic prime minister

Though the prime minister of Hungary, Mr Viktor Orbán is a calvinist, catholic spectacles seem to meet his taste much more than protestant puritanism (true, in his youth, around the fall of communism in 1989, he had adpoted a more Voltraian approach to the churches, but he, together with his party, switched to their present worldview in the mid 90s). He participates in the yearly procession of the catholic church  on National Day (20th of August) in Budapest carrying around a piece of a dead body, the alleged right hand of king Stephen I., the christianiser of Hungary and founder of the State.
Now, he's spent a couple of days in Castelgandolfo, the summer residence of the pope, and participated in the foundation of a network of christian legislators with the aim to provide a platform for members of palriaments and clerics to discuss moral values.
http://www.hirextra.hu/2010/08/25/orban-romaba-ment/

How to hand over state schools to churches easily

The Hungarian Teachers' Union wrote a letter to the constitutional court protesting against a new bill (No. LI of 2010) modifíng the law on public education. According to the bill, local authorities may hand over their schools to a church institution on the spot, without delay. According to the union, this step violates teachers' and pupils' religious freedom, as this would mean that anyone may suddenly find themselves in a religious institution, and in some places, there may not be any secular alternative.
Though schools are mainly state financed, they are maintained by the local government, and as the state subsidies are not enough, the schools budget is usually supplemented from the (also rather tight) local budget. Church schools, on the contrary, receive an avarage of the supplements provided by the local government in addition to the regular state subsidies. Therefore handing over a local school to a church is financially rewarding for local goverments,

Abuse management in Hungary

The child abuse scandal of the catholic church has not reached Hungary, and as during the communist era only a handfull of church schools were allowed to operate, the number of children abused in the last couple of decades cannot be as high as in countries where schools and children's homes were often managed by churches. This of course also means that any victim knows s/he is alone and they won't be any masses to support them.
Still, such things happen once in a while,

Blacklisted priests

A couple of years ago, a list appeared on the internet with the names and photos of alleged homosexuals in the Catholic clergy in four Hungarian dioceses. Besides homosexuality, some of them were accused also of criminla offenses (as coruption and paedosexual offenses). The list, whose unknown authors stated that it was far from exhaustive, seems to have been modífied to include new information, was taken down by a hacker, reappeared and finally disappeard in 2007. But the story s not over, as two of the persons listed, both of them bishops, have filed a complaint.
Of course calling someone homosexual is not an insult in itself. Legally speaking, the list is rather an offence against privacy,

Estates

Last year, a reformed bishop suggested that the churches receive back not only their buildings, but also the arable land that was taken away from them after WWII (the catholic church used to be one of the biggest land owners until them). The question is being discussed (not too vividly, however) in the intellectual weekly 'És' ('And'--its real name is 'Élet és irodalom', i.e. 'Life and Literature', but I have not once heard its whole name and it's referred to even in writing as 'És').
Csaba Fazekas and György Gábor argue that the churches did not own their estates but received them for use only by the kings, who paid them for their services to society through providing them with a revenue from these estates. I.e. they did not receive any property rights but only the rights to the net revenue drawn from the estates. Accodring to them, one of course could argue that the churches get back their land, but this would mean that all state funding would have to cease completely.

http://www.es.hu/index.php?view=doc;24710

Catholic campaign

Hungary is going to have parliamentary elections in April. Though this comes not as a surprise, the bishop of Szeged-Csanád, László Kiss-Rigó participated in a party event, where he stated that the only party respecting Christian values is Fidesz, and then went on to speak up against secularisation and the separation between state and church.
http://nol.hu/belfold/20100215-kampanyolo_puspok_a_balteremben

Blessed TV

2,4 billion forint (a big sum in Hungary) were transferred from the budget of the Hungarian state TV to the equally state financed Duna TV. A blogger "knows" why: not long before, the TV bulding was blessed by Hungarian catholic cardinal Péter Erdő. It turns out that this is the sixth time the blessing has been conducted. Anyway, it seems that the journalists are not that keen to attend the rite--they got a memo remind them to participate, because the time before they had to persuade workers by phone calls to provide an audience for the cardinal...

http://comment.blog.hu/2010/01/19/miert_a_duna_teve_kapta_a_2_4_milliardot

What does the church use your donations for?

To pay for abuse victims. At least this is what is going to happen with the buildings erected by the Hungarian community in Cleveland, USA. The bishop has already sold 24 churches, two of them built by Hungarian emigrants, and a third is to follow. 600 locals are fighting to keep the 150 year old church, they even turned to the head of the catholic church in Hungary, Péter Erdő, and to the Vatican, but without any results.

http://nepszava.hu/default.asp?cCenter=OnlineCikk.asp&ArticleID=1269503

Church recycling

Though the Vatican is very well informed, the head of Hungarian Catholics, Péter Erdő cardinal had to correct a statement by cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, according to whom in Hungary churches have been turned into brothels.
However, we do have more churches than necessary. In the village of Medgyesegyháza, the reformed church is selling one of its places of worship, since of the 200 inhabitants who declared themselves calvinist, only 1 or 2 attend the services held at the church once or twice a month. However, they plan to keep the churchbell, which was given to them by communist dictator Mátyás Rákosi in 1951.

http://www.nepszava.hu/articles/article.php?id=223049
http://index.hu/belfold/2009/11/17/elado_egy_reformatus_templom/

Telltale debt

A Hungarian Catholic priest was suspended for homosexual acts. A gay porn actor has accused him of not paying for his services. The church doesn't believe him to be guilty, as he did his work well. However, based on its statement it seems that the Catholic church still doesn't manage to understand the difference between homosexuality and child molesting: they say they believe him to be innocent because they have interviewed the altar-boys, who haven't had any strange experiences...
http://nol.hu/belfold/felfuggesztettek_a_szolgalat_alol_a_botranyt_okozo_jaszberenyi_plebanost

Choice of guest

Yesterday, Hungarians celebrated their national day. This traditionally includes a catholic procession, where the alleged, well-preserved hand of state founder king (Saint) Stephen I. is shown. This year, the head of Hungarian catholic, cardinal Péter Erdő invited the German cardinal Joachim Meisner to participate. In his home town, not everybody is happy with the cardinal, as he seems to enjoy provocation. He has called any non-figurative art not focussing on God "entartet" (the term the Nazi party used in the 1930s), he equated abortion with the holocaust, and already back in 1991 he said every non-Christian is a disdainful cannibal.