Hungarian Studies Review, Vol. XXXV, Nos. 1-2
(2008)
Book Review of Leslie
László's Church
and State in Hungary, 1919-1945. (Pannonhalma &
Budapest: METEM, 2004. 400 pages. Paper.)
by: Christopher Adam
The role of the Catholic Church in the evolution of Hungary during the
Horthy era has been a neglected field of study among Western
historians. Yet exploring the complicated relationship that clergy and
Catholic intellectuals had with the country's conservative regime
is central to understanding this period. Leslie László, a
retired political science professor from Concordia University and
currently an ordained priest in Ottawa, has tried to remedy this
situation, by producing one of the most in-depth studies of Hungarian
Catholic history ever to appear in the English language. A handful
of Western historians and other academics have touched on the
history of the Catholic Church in Hungary during this period, but most
of these analyses were within the broader context of interwar European
society and politics and, by their very nature, lacked the level of
detail that characterizes Fr. László's study.(1)
Although this work is based primarily on research conducted decades
ago, as part of the author's PhD dissertation, the sheer lack of a
similarly detailed English study on the subject means that the work has
not lost its overall value as an informative survey of Hungarian church
and state relations over a period spanning more than a quarter century.
The author argues that while the Church was essentially conservative in
its politics during the period following the end of World War I, it was
not outright reactionary and did not attempt to resist all reforms that
aimed to undo the vestiges of feudalism, which persisted in this
primarily agricultural society. Church officials made their voices
heard on issues of social justice, as Hungary moved ever close towards
more comprehensive industrialization. The clergy and Catholic
politicians were occasionally at the forefront in terms of the
introduction of progressive legislation, such as limited land reform,
protection for the industrial working class and basic social
security programs.(2)
Fr. László sees his book as a "case study" in the
relationship between Church and state, in what he believes was an
essentially "developing country." (3) Since Hungarian society
during this period was primarily agrarian, it is not entirely
surprising that the Church played such a key role. Church officials
enjoyed a close relationship with most political leaders and the
clergy's position was strongest in the field of education, with the
state providing parochial schools "lavish" financial support.(4)
The author appears to have written his work within a tense Cold War
political context; one in which he felt that the Church had been
unfairly treated by both Marxist historians in Eastern Europe, as well
as by western academics who focused on the Church's conservative
tendencies and its failure to condemn all forms of anti-Semitism.
As such, Fr. László argues that these studies have been
one sided and failed to pay attention to Catholic efforts aimed at
rescuing Jews during the Second World War. Fr.
László envisaged his work as an attempt to "set the
record straight," yet the danger inherent in this approach is that his
book comes across as less critical and nuanced in its examination of
the church's relationship with the Hungarian state during this highly
contentious period in history.(5)
This problem is perhaps most evident in Fr. László's
in-depth discussion of Bishop Ottokár Prohászka's
anti-Semitism. Fr. László recognizes that
Prohászka was an anti?Semite, despite the bishop's repeated
claims to the contrary.6 Prohászka had spoken in favour of
the numerus clausus and restricting admission of Jewish students to
universities. The bishop also believed that the apparent
overrepresentation of Jews in key professions, as well as their alleged
gravitation to liberalism was "harmful" to Hungarian society.(7)
Fr. László observed that Prohászka was willing to
jettison values of individual equality, if he believed that this served
the collective good. Based on a reading of the bishop's articles,
Father László argues that Prohászka's emphatic
anti-Semitic statements were not the outcome of "hatred" for Jews
generally (even though the author recognizes that the bishop had a
negative opinion of the majority of Hungarian Jews), but rather a
"passionate love for his own Christian Hungarian people," noting that
Prohászka "pitied his well-meaning but unbusinesslike people and
feared for their livelihood in the face of the shrewder and more
resourceful Jews."(8) The author appears to accept at face value
that the driving force behind Prohászka's anti-Semitism was
this well-intentioned, though strongly paternalistic concern for the
majority population, based upon prevailing stereotypes of Christians
and Jews.
Yet if one were to read between the lines and take Prohászka's
own justification of his anti-Semitism with a grain a salt, it would be
reasonable to suggest that the bishop was more concerned with upholding
the existing social order in Hungary and resisting efforts to transform
society into one based on liberal social and economic principles, such
as meritocracy, free market and a more critical approach to
institutions of authority. Liberalism seemed to propagate many of the
values that Prohászka (and other authoritarian conservatives at
the time) found both disturbing and potentially threatening. These
included the emphasis on individualism, secularism and the notion that
one's social and economic status should be determined by personal
achievement and professional success, rather than by one's family
background, social class, or religious affiliation. Fr.
László should have considered the possibility that the
bishop's anti-Semitism was not necessarily out of a noble (if
remarkably simplistic) concern for allegedly downtrodden Hungarians,
but out of fear that liberalism as represented by many urban elites, a
section of the professional middle class and some Jewish Hungarians was
a threat to the Church's dominant position in society. The revolutions
of 1918/19 represented a traumatic period for ecclesiastic leaders and
the nobility. As such, it would not be overly cynical to suggest
Prohászka's socioeconomic views, and his anti-Semitism, were
likely informed not only out of a sense of benevolent paternalism, but
at least as much out of fear for the direction that much of modern
industrial society was taking.
Fr. László makes a valid point when he notes that even if
Prohászka and probably many other Catholic leaders held
anti-Semitic views, their anti-Semitism was starkly different from the
genocidal variant adopted by Nazis during the Second World War. The key
difference was that Jews who converted to Christianity and were
baptized were essentially welcomed into the fold, whereas Nazis offered
no such opportunity.(9) Fr. László also points out
that this form of anti-Semitism hardly began and ended with the
statements of Catholic Church leaders. Intellectuals such as Gyula
Szekfü sometimes espoused a similarly fatalistic view of the
alleged dominance of Jewish Hungarians vis-a-vis those of Christian
origin.(10) Nevertheless, one may conclude that the verbal,
non-violent form of anti-Semitism espoused by Prohászka and many
others (which aimed to remove Jews from positions of influence through
legislation) was only a few steps away from the annihilationist
policies of Nazism.
While the legacy of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust certainly
overshadows the history of the entire period, this theme is not the
direct focus of Fr. László's examination of church and
state relations. While the Catholic Church has often been labelled as
reactionary for its support of an anachronistic regime especially
from the perspective of a modern liberal democracy, where the
separation of church and state is a rarely questioned ideal. Fr.
László makes a thought-provoking point by observing that
the sudden removal of the church from the centre of society would have
created a Aspiritual vacuum, which could then be filled by totalitarian
ideologies.(11)
Although Fr. László was not able to consult material in
Hungarian archives when he originally completed his research, his use
of a wide array of published primary sources ensures that his work is
well documented. In some cases, a greater degree of nuance would have
strengthened his work, but the book remains valuable as a survey
history of a topic barely touched by western scholars.
Christopher Adam
University of Ottawa
NOTES
1 One of the most comprehensive examinations of church-state relations
in Eastern Europe was written by Sabrina Ramet, a political scientist.
Sabrina P. Ramet, Nihol Obstat: Religion, Politics and Social Change in
East-Central Europe and Russia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press:
1998).
2 Leslie László, Church and State in Hungary,
1919-1945 (Pannonhalma & Budapest: METEM, 2004), 206-207.
3 Ibid., 9.
4 Ibid., 332.
5 Ibid., 14.
6 Ibid., 125.
7 Ibid., 126-127.
8 Ibid., 128-129.
9 Ibid., 129-130.
10 Ibid., 131.
11 Ibid., 331.