ABSTRACT
Hungarian historians usually place the birth of political Catholicism during the last decade of the nineteenth century.1 The first independent Catholic organization within the Hungarian political party system, the People’s Party (Néppárt), which was closely tied to the activities of Nándor Zichy, was founded in 1895. The party came into being as a result of the new laws of 1894-95, which had been inspired by the spirit of liberalism. The legislation reorganized Church-State relations in Hungary and instigated an extraordinarily spirited resistance on the part of Catholic prelates. The first of these new laws made civil marriage mandatory, while the second required the registration of births by the state. These were followed by laws that granted legal equality to the Jewish faith and guaranteed the free practice of religion.2 Similar conflicts with the Catholic Church had already accompanied urbanization and the growth of a middle-class culture during the so-called reform era, immediately before 1848. At that time, political Catholicism first developed in Hungary under the leadership of Canon Mihály Fogarassy, who was its first representative. He aimed at defending the Catholic Church in the public sphere by organizing politically and establishing a mass movement for winning over laymen.3
