Piarist monks József Ruppert and István Farkas received the William of Fraknó award this year. The recognition was presented by Miklós Soltész, the Prime Minister’s State Secretary responsible for church and ethnic relations, and the vice-president of the KDNP in Budapest on Friday.
The two award-winning publicists have done a fantastic job as teachers. In addition, József Ruppert helped to beatify not only Spanish Piarists, but also several Hungarians, and István Farkas achieved important results in religious education and spiritual education in addition to teaching mathematics and physics.
said the state secretary.
József Ruppert received the William of Fraknó award for his decades of work as a teacher and educator, for his efforts to restart religious life in former socialist countries as a Central European assistant of the Piarist order, and for his successful work in the beatification process of several Hungarians and Spaniards.
István Farkas received the award in recognition of his lasting merits i
n public education as a mathematics-physics-technology teacher and high school principal, and his significant role in the organization and development of Catholic education in the period after the system change.
Máté Gárdonyi , the head of the department of religious studies at Pázmány Péter Catholic University and the chairman of the judging committee that awarded the prize, explained in his eulogy: József Ruppert was a biology-chemistry teacher at the Kecskemét Piarist High School for 22 years, and between 1983 and 1991 he also managed the institution.
From 1991, József Ruppert held the position of General Assistant for Central Europe for 20 years and in this capacity helped to revive the Piarist presence in Slovakia, Poland and Belarus, and to preserve the Piarist heritage in Romania.
During this period, his duties included promoting the order’s canonization matters as a postulator. It is also thanks to him that the Piarist martyrs of the Spanish Civil War were elevated to the altar.
He later put his k
nowledge and connections to the service of the Hungarian Church.
He carried out the beatification process of Sára Salkaházi and János Brenner. He participated in the canonization of Bishop Szilárd Bogdánffy from Nagyvárad and Bishop János Scheffler from Szatmár, as well as in the initiation of the beatification process of the ethnographer Sándor Bálint from Szeged.
About István Farkas, the head of the department, he said: he continued his teaching activities for several decades first in the Piarist high school in Pest, then in Kecskemét, and finally in Mosonmagyaróvár, primarily as a teacher of mathematics and physics, and later as a teacher of technology, philosophy and religion. He also served as director in Kecskemét and Mosonmagyaróvár.
However, for his students, parents and colleagues, Mr. Farkas was not only a teacher and director, but also “Father Lupus”, a spiritual father who could be addressed personally, a leader of spiritual exercises, and a tireless organizer of pilgrimages.
Less spectacular,
but just as important, was the decades of background work he did to make the Catholic education network that grew after the regime change as effective as possible.
He is credited with developing the Catholic framework curriculum. After 2000, he headed the secretariat of church education affairs in the Ministry of Education, and was a member of the public education council and the textbook committee. Since 2010, he has been an education policy advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Máté Gárdonyi took part in the development of the concept of the older and newer public education law and the National Core Curriculum and, together with his colleagues, in the preparation of textbooks on morals and religious studies.
Source: KDNP
