CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND MORAL DISCOMFORT: THE CASE OF A CATHOLIC CLERK
CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND MORAL DISCOMFORT: THE CASE OF A CATHOLIC CLERK

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents the case of a Hungarian Catholic clerk, an 81 year old lady from the Transylvanian countryside. Her daughter has sent her a bigger amount of money, but she understood soon that the post officer, a women herself, has stolen a significant part of it. A procedure of reclamation followed, but the case remained unsolved. The director of the post-office and the local policemen did not help. Then she turned to the Romanian Orthodox priest for help and offered some money in change. Although it is quite widespread among the local Hungarians of different religious affiliation (but almost never Orthodox) to ask Romanian Orthodox priests for help in times of personal crisis (or the crisis of a family member), this is a highly contradictory solution for a pious Catholic clerk. She’s never been before to any Orthodox priest, but she was aware of similar help seeking activities among the local Hungarian, Romanian or Roma. The same is true for the use of magic during her long lifetime. But using magic is regarded less sinful by the old clerk, than going to the Orthodox priest for the solution of a legal case. She senses God’s intention behind her failure!

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