A BISHOP has said the election of the Communist Party (KSS) to parliament shows that Slovaks are not as Catholic as they claim.
Bishop Rudolf Baláž of the Banská Bystrica diocese was reportedly shocked on hearing the KSS had captured 11 seats in the 150-mandate parliament in September 20-21 elections.
Jozef Hrtus, head of the Banská Bystrica diocese office, said Balaž had been particularly shocked that in the eastern Slovak district of Medzilaborce, traditionally the nation's most religious, the KSS had won outright.
In the 2001 census more than 80 per cent of Slovaks said they were religious, with most of those claiming the Catholic faith.
"I call it Christian schizophrenia," Hrtus said. "People are Christian only in church, but in real life they forget all about that. This [election result] has shown that faith has little influence on people's opinions."
