Hungary’s House Speaker calls for ‘healthy religious laity’ in Poland

Warsaw, April 19 (MTI) – Having a “healthy religious laity” as advocated by Pope Benedict XVI could help restore values that “determine the identity of Europe”, Hungary’s House Speaker László Kövér told a conference in Warsaw on Wednesday.

According to Benedict XVI, the state should provide room for the religious activities of its citizens without pushing them towards any particular religion, Kövér said.

Citing the negative experiences of totalitarianism in the twentieth century, Kövér gave warning of dangers inherent in present trends such as “Islamic fundamentalism, relativism and globalisation”.

The conference focused on the teachings of the pontiff emeritus.

“The disputes about the future of Europe today cannot simply be a matter of private consultations between politicians and technocrats,” Kövér said at a press conference held at the sidelines of the conference.

It is not institutions that should be the focus of these disputes since reforming them will not be possible without renewing their moral foundations, Kövér said, urging a more active involvement of Christian churches in this discourse.

Kövér said that teachings by Benedict XVI “give encouragement to politicians who firmly believe that European civilisation has no future if its ideological foundations, such as Roman civil law, Greek philosophy and Christian ethics, become dismantled.”

Later in the day, Kövér attended the unveiling ceremony of a monument to Hungary’s 1956 revolution and the solidarity of Poles during those events. The ceremony was also attended by Marek Kuchcinski, speaker of Poland’s Sejm.

Source: MTI