The State Secretary of Slovakia’s culture ministry promised to make Jesus Christ the king of Slovakia during a speech at a Catholic basilica during a Mass and called on the Slovakian Catholic Church to support his proposal, angering critics.
State Secretary Štefan Kuffa, a member of the nationalist-conservative Slovak National Party, which is a junior partner in the current government of Prime Minister Robert Fico, stated that he wanted to see Jesus Christ installed as king and promised to make the proposal a reality, the Slovakian newspaper Pravda reports.
“On behalf of the Ministry of Culture, we give a promise … that we will be the ones who will initiate to achieve as soon as possible that Christ the King will be enthroned and become the king of Slovakia,” Kuffa said.
The Slovak Bishops’ Conference replied to the proposal saying, “The Slovak Bishops’ Conference distances itself from the words spoken by the representative of the Ministry of Culture during the Trnava Novena, which is prepared annually by the Trnava Archdiocese.”
The Bishop’s Conference also criticised Kuffa for making the proposal within the St. Nicholas Basilica saying, “The temple is a place of prayer and should not be a place for appeals that divide believers. Mixing a political agenda with a spiritual word provokes resentment and negative reactions that we understand.”
The Mass was initially broadcast online but was taken down from social media networks only to be uploaded later with the ten minutes of Kuffa’s speech cut out from the broadcast.
Opposition politicians were angered by Kuffa’s remarks, such as Alojz Hlina, an independent MP elected on the liberal SASKA list.
“I’m horrified by it. I really do not want that. May they give holy peace to the churches, all these traffickers with faith,” Hlina said.
František Majerský of the Christian Democrats added, “I am also surprised that he was given the opportunity in the church to comment on political matters, it absolutely does not belong there.”
Former Slovakian Deputy Prime Minister Veronika Remišová of the liberal pro-European For the People Party also criticised Kuffa saying, “It has never happened before that a high-ranking politician preached at a Holy Mass and misused the church grounds for his political purposes.”
The Ministry of Culture was also not overly keen to support Kuffa, writing a statement saying, “This initiative has been considered by the Ministry of Culture from the beginning as a private activity of State Secretary Stefan Kuffa.”
Declaring Jesus Christ as king is not a move without precedent in Europe. The Polish government declared Christ king in 2016 at a ceremony at the Church of Divine Mercy in Krakow.
Polish Catholics across the country came together to pray a prayer to install Christ as king stating:
In our hearts, rule us, Christ! In our families, rule us, Christ! … In our schools and universities, rule us, Christ! … Through the Polish nation, rule us, Christ! … We pledge to defend your holy worship and preach Thy royal glory, Christ our King, we promise!
Like Poland, Slovakia is a majority-Catholic country with an estimated three million Roman Catholics, roughly 56% of the country’s population according to the European Union. A total of approximately 3.8 million Slovakians consider themselves religious, with just 111,000 of them being non-Christian.
The statistics also show, however, that the number of Catholics within the country has declined since 2001 by nearly 700,000.
