József Menyhárt: Religion and language (language policy of the Catholic church in Slovakia)

The author in his study examines those religious policy issues that influence and expectedly will influence language usage, maintenance, and language change of Catholic Hungarians in Slovakia.

The recent language policy of the Slovak Catholic church and its influence on the language usage of Hungarian believers is inseparable from the basic problems of the Hungaran Catholic religious life. These are according to the author the following: a) the lack of major pastors (bishop or subsidiary bishop) and/or bishop officials with Hungarian mother language, b) priests with Hungarian mother language (ageing of priest with Hungarian mother language, lack of replacement/new generation priests, leaving of young priests), c) lack of education in Hungarian language for young priests with Hungarian mother language, and/or clumsiness of education in Hungarian language for young priests with Slovak mother language, d) institutional and organisational problems (lack of religious education in Hungarian language, professional training, further professional training of priests, conscious soul maintenance; low number of religious educational institutions), e) indifferent and sometimes even chauvinistic/anti-Hungarian attitude of responsible Slovak main pastors towards problems of Catholic believers with Hungarian nationality (releasing Hungarian-oriented priests from Hungarian parishes, who are often replaced by Slovak priests who speak little or no Hungarian, efforts for dissolving Hungarian Catholics while establishing new dioceses).

The author measures and introduces the impact of recent Catholic religious policy on language and language usage by analysing religious policy and history.