A 2026-os költségvetés-elemzésből
800 million Ft for hospital chaplains — funded by every patient's tax, regardless of faith
The hospital chaplaincy service costs 800 million Ft per year from the state budget: pastoral care for hospitalised patients provided by state-funded clergy rather than by churches whose members have chosen to support them.
About 200 Ft per taxpayer per year — for a pastoral service in hospitals that churches could fund from offering and membership income.
Amit látsz — és amit nem
The seen: chaplains in Hungarian hospitals providing pastoral support to patients and families — a service that has genuine value for many people facing serious illness. The unseen: the non-religious patient, or the patient of a different faith, whose hospital stay is partly funded by a service they did not request and whose chaplains represent a tradition they may not share.
Ellenvetés
"Sick people in hospital need spiritual support — removing chaplains is cruel, not fiscal responsibility."
Válasz
No chaplain is removed immediately. The three-year linear phase-out gives churches time to fund the chaplaincy service from their own resources — the same resources the 31.7 billion Ft core-institution line is designed to protect during the transition. A hospital chaplain whose work is valued by patients and families is exactly the kind of pastoral service that a congregation will choose to fund; the argument is not that the service is unwanted but that it does not require the entire taxpaying population to be compelled to fund it.
Share if you think hospital pastoral care should be funded by the churches whose faith it represents.
Az elemző értékelése
Kórházlelkészi szolgálat támogatása
Az elemző indoklása jelenleg angol nyelven elérhető; magyar fordítás folyamatban.
Indoklás
Religious practice is the paradigm case of a voluntary association. A church is sustained by the freely-given contributions of its believers — and Hungarian churches, like churches everywhere, have a millennia-tested mechanism for this: the offering, the tithe, the membership of the faithful. The classical-liberal frame does not judge the worth of religious life; it observes that religious life does not require involuntary tax financing, because the people who value a church can and historically do fund it directly. The seen here is a funded parish, a renovated church building, a supplemented clergy income. The unseen is the wage-earner — of any faith or none — whose SZJA was routed to a religious institution they may not belong to and did not choose.
Átállási mechanizmus
The 7,337.3 millió Ft optional-religious-education line and the 2,718.0 Charity Council line phase over three years, long enough for the activities to migrate to church and parish funding. The hospital chaplaincy line similarly phases over three years. Across the cluster, the SZJA 1% church designation — the genuinely voluntary channel — is untouched and becomes the primary funding route.
Érintett csoportok
Churches and religious institutions providing hospital chaplaincy services, who transition from state grant to church and parish funding; no patient loses pastoral care access, as churches retain full freedom to continue the service from voluntary contributions.
Szabad Társadalom Intézet
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