 |
Vigh, Szabolcs (1934[Budapest] ) |
|
|
|
|
|
Szabolcs Vigh was born in Budapest on the 19th of November 1934 into an intellectual middle class family. His father was a lawyer who worked as a representative for the Hungarian Shipping Company. His mother completed grammar school but remained at home as a housewife. There were five children in the family of which Szabolcs was the eldest. The children received a catholic education. After primary school Szabolcs went to the grammar school of the Piarist Fathers. When catholic schools in Hungary were forced to close, he finished his secondary education at the Eötvös grammar school. In 1953 he enrolled as a theology student at the Catholic Theological Academy in Budapest. In 1958 he was ordained a priest.
During the uprising in Budapest in October 1956 he took to the streets together with his fellow students to help where necessary. On the 3rd of November he together with others arranged that the secret archives of the Communist Secretariat for Church affairs were hidden to prevent their use for political ends. After the uprising failed, his family fled to the Netherlands. However, Szabolcs remained in Hungary and was arrested in June 1957. In the trial of Egon Turchányi and accomplices he was number four of the seventeen accused. Under international pressure, probably from the United Nations, he was released before the end of the trial. On the 10th of January 1958 the case against him was officially dismissed.
In the next years he became a chaplain in the villages of Endrefalva, Tát and Tokod. In 1965 he moved to Budapest where he worked in various parishes. Szabolcs did not become a "békepap" (so-called 'peace-priest' i.e. collaborator). He also resisted a number of attempts by the secret service to recruit him as an agent. Unsurprisingly, it took until 1968 before at last he received permission to travel to the West.
In 1971 Vigh obtained a PhD in Theology with a thesis entitled "The Ethics of birth control within the Catholic Church: How the views of the church changed through the centuries". He published several articles in the Hungarian magazines 'Vigilia' and 'Teológia' on the discussion of birth control in everyday pastoral work. In 1973 he asked permission to go to Washington to participate in an international research team investigating ethical problems of birth control and demography. His request was refused by the church authorities. During a pastoral conference in the same year he openly criticised the practical application of the Church´s doctrine on birth control. In the following year his bishop publicly demanded that he withdrew his statements. When he refused to change his views, he was transferred to another parish as a punishment.
In 1975 Vigh finally decided to ask permission to emigrate and in February 1976 he came to live in the Netherlands for good. In the same year he asked to be relieved from his vows and married soon afterwards. This marriage ended in a divorce. He remarried in 1987 and a son 'Peter' was born the same year.
In 1976 Vigh was employed by the Theological Faculty of the University of Tilburg first as a researcher and later as a documentalist in the library. He retired in 1999. From 2003 up to now he works as a volunteer on a Dutch SOS emergency line, member of IFOTES (International Federation of Telephone Emergency Services). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Az apai ág