St. Stephen of Hungary

 

The Church is universal, but its expression is always affected - for good or ill - by local culture. There are no "generic" Christians; there are Mexican Christians, Polish Christians, Filipino Christians. This fact is evident in the life of Stephen, national hero and spiritual patron of Hungary.

Born a pagan, he was baptized at about the age of ten, together with his father, chief of the Magyars, a group who migrated to the Danube area in the ninth century...

When he succeeded his father, Stephen adopted a policy of Christianization of the country for both political and religious reasons. He suppressed a series of revolts by pagan nobles and welded the Magyars into a strong national group. He sent to Rome to get ecclesiastical organization - and also to ask the pope to confer the title of king upon him. He was crowned on Christmas day in 1001.

Stephen established a system of tithes to support churches and pastors and to relieve the poor. Out of every 10 towns one had to build a church and support a priest...

He was easily accessible to all, especially the poor...

(From Saint of the Day)

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Although the Church has contributed much to the development of culture, experience shows that, because of circumstances, it is sometimes difficult to harmonize culture with Christian teaching.

These difficulties do not necessarily harm the life of faith. Indeed they can stimulate the mind to a more accurate and penetrating grasp of the faith. For recent studies and findings of science, history and philosophy raise new questions which influence life and demand new theological investigations.

(Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 62).

St Stephen lived from AD 975-1038. Pope Paul VI promulgated the Pastoral Constitution on 7th December 1965. All this time has passed, and still we don't haven't taken on board these insights. If we had, we wouldn't have the stand-off between Creationism and Evolutionism; we wouldn't have such problems talking openly with Muslims and others living in our communities; and we might even be able to cope reasonably gracefully with the differences of opinion between those of us who long to welcome LGBT people freely into every part of the life of the church, and those who fear this for what they believe to be Biblical reasons!