began a new period in his life Monday, February 3, after Pope John Paul II greeted in a letter this weekend, in a further sign of reconciliation.
Piarist Priest Gyorgy Bulanyi received the Pope’s greetings during a mass in Budapest on Saturday, February 1, to mark the 60th anniversary of his ordination, reports said.
The 84-year old Bulanyi was the founder of what became known as the movement "Bokor", the Hungarian word for bush, which refers to the burning bush in the Bible.
FAMILY LIFE
His movement, founded in 1945, promoted a Christian active family life and fought against the church hierarchy which Bulanyi said threatened the New Testament base of the Catholic denomination.
In the late 80s, when an Assist News Service reporter secretly visited him, Bulanyi was not allowed to travel abroad and to publish his opinions and church memoirs.
But Bulanyi continued to lead underground home churches, which he hoped could bring a revival within the Catholic Church. "We should eradicate the word ‘privilege’, the will to possess more, from our life," Bulanyi said during Saturday’s ceremony, the Hungarian News Agency MTI reported.
FORGIVENESS
He recently also urged Bishops who cooperated with the previous regime to resign and ask forgiveness. Bulanyi stressed "that only the poor in spirit may get to the Kingdom of Heaven and those who draw the sword will fall by the sword."
He had a similar message under Communism, when the authorities branded his efforts as a plot and sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1952.
Released in the early 1960s, he worked as a transport worker. In 1982 the Hungarian Catholic Church prohibited him from church service. The Vatican confirmed the decision in 1987 but revised it ten years later, a major development for this mainly Catholic nation of ten million people.
