Hungarian Conservative

The French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the emergence of capitalism, and the development of the first nation-states put both Protestant and Catholic churches in a position they could never have dreamed of a few decades before. Even though reconciliation between state and church came fast, these events served as a Rubicon in Western history and civilization. The clergy, regardless of its faith, had to rediscover itself in a totally different political and socio-cultural environment. The insightful book Theologians on Modern Politics, presented on 4 June, attempts to demonstrate the changing nature of both religious institutions and the faith itself, which allowed Christian ideas and communities to remain key players in modern politics.

‘In modern Christian Democracy, the Roman Catholic and Protestant lines of thought come together to form a common Christian understanding of a desirable society. Subsidiarity as one of the core principles in social teaching calls for a healthy society, where different vertical levels and horizontal spheres respect each other’s autonomy, even sovereignty, while at the same time bringing them into cooperation.’

Throughout Hungarian history, the country was often referred to as Mary’s realm, the Regnum Marianum. On the occasion of the Hungary’s Millennium celebrations in 1896, Pope Leo XIII sent an encyclical letter to the Hungarian nation, granting permission for Hungarian Catholics to celebrate the feast of the patroness Boldogasszony.

In contemporary Catholic social teaching, like Slachta’s reasoning, women are essentially other than men, and this otherness is articulated in the papal encyclicals in relation to women’s role in the family. In contrast, the Catholic nun’s view of the female otherness goes beyond this approach. Although she also emphasises the dignity of the female gender, for her, feminine otherness is the underlying motif of her thinking.

If we wish to understand the role of Christians in modern politics, it is essential to briefly present the thinking of Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903).