_____Interview___________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

 Where Cultures Meet
Emerging with remarkable energy from decades of Communist oppression, a Catholic
university leads students to the edges of scientific research, while encouraging them
to maintain a firm foundation in the faith.

Interview by Benjamin Wiker

Hungary has had an extraordinary and tumultuous history. At the time of the Roman Empire, it was known as Pannonia. Skirting the Danube River, it offered Rome a line of defense against the threatening Germanic tribes. As Rome weakened, the Germanic tribes poured in during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but were themselves displaced in the 5th century by the conquering Huns (led by Attila). After the death of Attila the Hun, the Germanic tribes returned, only to be driven out by the Asiatic Avars. Then came the Moravians, and in the late 9th century, the Magyars, who gave Hungarians the ethnic stamp they still have today.

Soon after the Magyars gained control, Christianity came to Hungary. St. Steven I (canonized in 1083) was the first of the Christian kings, and began, with great success, the Christianization of Hungary. In 1496, the Hungarian military leader János Hunyadi defeated the Ottoman army, saving Europe from invasion for the time being.

Many struggles lay ahead for Hungary in the following centuries, such as the conquest by the Ottoman Turks of a part of the country for 150 years. But perhaps no greater trial was imposed upon Hungary than when Communists, representing a new kind of paganism, took over Hungary in 1948, and attempted to undo a thousand years of Christian culture.

In October 1956, for ten days Hungarians revolted against Communist rule, giving an unprecedented challenge to the hegemony of Communism and raising a heroic cry which unfortunately did not draw a vigorous response from the democratic West. Although the Soviets crushed the uprising, many historians believe this revolt was indeed the beginning of the end for Communism, leading ultimately to the remarkable collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989. Even during the 40-year suppression of Christian culture, Christianity had remained alive in Hungary, yielding not only thousands of beautiful examples of people faithful to the Gospel, but also several canonized saints.

Today in Hungary, out of the rubble created by almost a half century of enforced atheism, the light of Christianity and freedom is rising again, and the enormous task of rebuilding the country, following a peaceful change of the political system, has begun. In this transformation, Catholic schools, colleges, and universities are great beacons of hope for the re-Christianization of culture. In Hungary, Pázmány Péter Catholic University has a special mission. Founded in the early 17th century, and nearly dismantled by Communists after 1948, this great university—loyal to Rome and incorporating both the best of the liberal arts and the latest in science and technology—promises to help usher in a new springtime of evangelization for Hungary.

Dr. Tamás Roska, dean of the university’s new Faculty of Information Technology, and one of the foremost electrical engineers and computer scientists in the world in the new field of analogic cellular supercomputing, was instrumental in the re-founding of Pázmány Péter Catholic University.

Dr. Roska, could you give us some historical background on Pázmány Péter Catholic University? When was it founded?

Dr. Tamás Roska: As archbishop of all Hungary, Cardinal Péter Pázmány—in Hungarian we write it as Pázmány Péter—founded the university in 1635. This was a turbulent time for the Kingdom of Hungary. Speaking of Hungary as a kingdom, our first king, St. Steven, was crowned in the year 1000.

This was the St. Steven who helped make Hungary Christian?

Roska: Yes. By the 17th century, a third of the country was under Ottoman rule and the Catholic Church was under attack from the freshly-entered faith of the Reformation. Pázmány was a visionary. He felt that education on the highest level, combined with strong commitment to and faith in Christ, was the way out of this crisis.

Wasn’t he also a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism?

Roska: He was indeed a convert. He gave up his Protestant faith in 1583, returned to Catholicism, and joined the Jesuits in 1587. Pázmány was the leader of the Counter-reformation in Hungary, and also a preeminent scholar, writer, and speaker. He wrote many beautiful sermons and books, and became a reformer of the Hungarian language. His efforts in reviving education were also quite successful. We note that Pázmány University became the leading university of Hungary, becoming also a Royal University later. Many outstanding scientists and scholars, including Nobel laureates, got their degrees from this university.

When Hungary came under the control of the Communists, what effect did that have on the university?

Roska: The de facto Communist coup d’etat, with the patronage of the Soviet Army and under the umbrella of the Yalta agreement, occurred in 1948. Soon after, the university was divided into three parts. The smallest remained a Catholic theological faculty, keeping the original name of Pázmány.

How soon after the fall of the iron curtain was Péter Pázmány Catholic University (PPCU) re-established in its proper form?

Roska: Indeed, in a few months. It is almost unbelievable. After the collapse of the Communist system in 1989, a few intellectuals, in the early days of 1990—led by a young professor of canon law who was teaching also at the Gregorian University in Rome, Msgr. Péter Erdö— revitalized the university by making a foundation and preparing curricula for different faculties and schools. He is now the rector, and also an auxiliary bishop.

What were the difficulties involved in bringing the university back to life?

Roska: Recalling back to 1990, it seems to me that was a time of euphoria. We felt anything could be done! The Hungarian Catholic Bishops Conference, led by Archbishop István Seregély and supported also by the papal nuncio, Archbishop Angelo Acerbi, discerned this unique moment of history. Through their efforts the Hungarian parliament adopted a law establishing the extended Péter Pázmány Catholic University in 1992. The School of Letters and Humanities was accredited first, then in 1995 the School of Law, and finally in 1998 the School of Information Technology. The last step was not so easy, but many in our society were strongly helping.

What was so difficult about that last step?

Roska: While the reorganization of the university system has been completed, the government between 1994 and 1998 was not so helpful, to say the least.

How is PPCU set up today?

Roska: Now the university has four schools or colleges, each accredited to issue scientific degrees, including PhD. The university has about 8,000 students, and the first semester of undergraduate teaching in the Faculty of Information Technology started in 2001.

As it now exists, PPCU is not just a Catholic university in name, but in truth—fully in accord with Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Was this, in itself, a struggle?

Roska: Your question reflects the cultural difference between America and Hungary! In establishing PPCU, whether to be loyal to Rome was not a question. Why establish a Catholic university without being Roman Catholic? Why should we not follow Ex Corde Ecclesiae?

But didn’t the years of Communist propaganda make it difficult?

Roska: Of course we have had some problems, especially because many students have been educated in a school system with aggressive Marxist atheistic pressure. Still, most of us did not believe in it. History showed the nonsense of that doctrine with the fall of Communism in 1989. However, the lack of knowledge about the Gospel and the Church is a major problem we must face.

Unlike many in the West, then, you see no conflict with the university’s commitment to the Catholic faith and its commitment to research, especially research in science.

Roska: Read carefully Fides et Ratio and the many writings of John Paul II, as well as the writings of many other scholars. The artificial and historical contradiction between faith and science is over. As I see it, faith and science are two partially overlapping spheres of human knowledge. Science and technology have their own methods of proof. Most of their axioms can be proved experimentally. But in the moral order and in many branches of humanities, axioms reflect our basic notion on the human person. I think this is the root of the differences. I do think the materialistic superstitions of the 19th century are over.

And one of those superstitions is that faith and reason are necessarily in conflict?

Roska: This is a forced doctrine throughout the world, and the Communist and the Western materialistic ideologies were both in full accord in this. On the other hand, I am not, of course, saying that faith could be proved by logic or science.

Now that Communism has fallen away, Western materialism is now presenting difficulties?

Roska: I do not want to ignore the even more aggressive challenge of the hedonistic, materialistic worldview of many influential parts of the West, especially in the universities.

Is PPCU the only university of its kind in Eastern Europe?

Roska: No, in Central-Eastern Europe, there are a few others. In Lublin (Poland), a Catholic university existed before 1989, and very recently a Catholic university has been established in Slovakia. Our university is helping the latter in many ways.

Since you are the dean of the Faculty of Information Technology, could you explain what this degree entails?

Roska: In the United States, this type of department is called Electrical and Computer Engineering or Electronic Engineering and Computer Sciences. However, we have added some very interesting ingredients: teaching biology, mostly neurosciences, as well. We are following the pioneering directions of Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, on a smaller scale, and adding our own special character. In adding subjects in neurobiology (plus some genetics and immunology), we are mostly concerned with the signal sensing and processing aspects of the brain.

So you are trying to show the connection, in regard to information theory and processing, between computers and the human brain?

Roska: Yes, we know that the brain represents and processes signals and information in completely different ways than digital computers and signal processors. Still, we need to learn much more to discover the new generation of brain-like computers.

Does the Faculty of Information Technology do any research?

Roska: This is a research-university type of faculty, with a strong collaboration with National Research Laboratories of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. I have a research lab in one of them, the Computer and Automation Research Institute, where we try to incorporate the latest research results into undergraduate teaching.

I see that the Faculty of Information Technology teaches courses related to the humanities and theology, including a course entitled “Faith and Reason.” How does John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio guide your approach to teaching engineering students the basics of humanities and religion?

Roska: In addition to what I said before—that the belief that faith and reason are in essential conflict is a materialistic superstition—I also want to stress that science and technology are neutral as to their discipline. Discoveries and new technologies can be used for better or worse. The students, however, are not “neutral.” They are human beings living through dramatic years of their personal developments. They need guidance and knowledge about human values on the level of abstraction comparable to their scientific studies, and also to live in a community respecting human dignity and experiencing solidarity. Moreover, moral decisions in their future work will come in their applications of science and technology. The field of information technology, combined with biotechnologies, could be the technology most sensitive to human values.

Why is that? What is special about the field of information technology?

Roska: Information technology has arrived at a stage where, combined with biology and brain research, the new possibilities in interacting with humans, in their mind and in their body, could be frightening. Not to mention the brainwashing that could occur through the Internet and other information sources available to personal use!

No doubt you are aware that, in the West, our students generally receive advanced degrees in engineering and computer science without ever having taken a humanities course, a philosophy course, or a theology course. Do you see this as a danger?

Roska: It depends on the culture and the level and type of high school education. In Hungary, traditionally, many high schools have been on a high level, teaching classical education as well. (You can see the results. Read, for example, the memoirs of J. Von Neumann, Edward Teller, and many Nobel laureates like Eugene Wigner, Albert Szentgyorgyi, Denis Gabor, John Harsanyi, George Olah, Leo Szilard, George von Bekesy.) In these schools the so-called “Great Books” were taught in high schools. In those cultures where this tradition does not exist, you have to complete this type of education at the universities. Moreover, some higher-level teaching of art, philosophy, history of science, as well as the fundamentals of the message of the Gospel, are needed. We have five such courses in the Faculty of Information Technology.

Even on the practical level, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has emphasized the role of studying philosophy, art, languages, music, and so forth, to be able to discover new concepts, which are vital for the concept-driven new economy of the 21st century.

So, then, all students at the university, regardless of which college (or faculty) they attend, have to take basic courses in the liberal arts, philosophy, and theology?

Roska: Yes, they do; the subjects depend on the actual department.

To return to your academic area, electrical engineering and computer science, you have had quite an interesting career. You were, I am told, the co-inventor of the analogic cellular supercomputer and the bionic eye.

Roska: Yes. In fact, this January is the 14th since 1989 that I have been visiting UC Berkeley, where I was first invited to a one-semester visit in 1974. Between 1993 and 2000 I spent about four months a year in Berkeley, conducting research in wonderful collaboration with Professor Leon Chua, a world leader in nonlinear electronics and nonlinear science.

In 1992 we jointly invented a new computer paradigm called the analogic cellular computer. We are also calling it a wave computer or visual computer, since the basic operation is the solution of a wave equation, or an operation uncovering specific geometric properties on a whole image. It is analogic since we are combining analog, continuous valued signal arrays, with logic. I was inspired by the idea of the hemispheric asymmetries of the brain (left brain, right brain), which I learned from Professor József Hámori in Budapest. Later, Professor Frank Werblin of UC Berkeley joined Leon Chua and me in discovering the retinal like capabilities of the analogic cellular supercomputer, technically called Cellular Neural Network (or CNN) Universal Machine. One outcome of this collaboration was the re-programmable CNN Universal Machine mimicking different living visual systems—what is called the “bionic eye.” I am grateful to my friends at Berkeley for the stimulating and excellent intellectual environment I have experienced during the last 14 years.

Recently it has been my special pleasure that my son Botond, an MD and a neuroscientist, has made a major discovery with Professor Werblin in understanding the so-far hidden part of the inner retina. We try to implement these findings via our CNN models.

You are one of the leaders in an area of research of analogic computing, connecting neurobiology and computer science, a field called Neuromorphic Information Technology. Please tell us what this is, and on what you are focusing in your research.

Roska: I am focusing only on a few specific questions in this broad and exciting field. Indeed, I have recently been named the director of a transatlantic research workshop in Brussels, co-directed by Frank Werblin, and supported by the National Science Foundation and the European Union’s Future and Emerging Technology Unit. The area has been called “bionics.” This is a strategic and also commercially important new direction of research with experimental problems coming close to science fiction! For example, how can a monkey direct a robot via its brain electrical pulses, or how can we forecast or later avoid epileptic seizures. The possibilities are exciting, although the possible misuses of this technology are frightening.

So obviously, there is all the more reason to have a university such as yours where the study of the latest technology is also guided by morality and faith. How do you see this research as advancing the goals of the Catholic faith?

Roska: The theoretical part of this research has, so far, no direct relation to our Christian view of man and the world. The applications, however, might have. We are told to have dominion over the world, and the advance of technology is part of that, but we must guide our efforts properly. Have dominion, but respect God and his commandments.

Dr. Roska, you have been through a lot, and your experiences and deep faith have much to teach us here in the West. What advice or warning would you give to our Catholic colleges and universities?

Roska: Like all men, including other Christians, I am also struggling, experiencing the human drama, and praying for help and grace. I am grateful for the grace of my faith and for the harmony and wonderful experiences I have received from my whole family over the years—including the grace the priestly vocation of my son Peter is bringing to my family.

It is difficult for me to give advice. I would rather encourage the many wonderful American families, communities, and friends I have met during the last 14 years not to be afraid in promoting their family values, intellectual integrity, generosity, and many other beautiful virtues I have experienced, including my experience at the University of Notre Dame.

I am sorry to say that what arrives from America in Hungary and Europe, through the mainstream media, is corrupting these wonderful values. As Carl Bernstein put it a few years ago in a Sunday newspaper article, the “Idiot Culture” is dispersing widely. Colleges and universities are sensitive fields in forming the future. I do think that Catholic colleges and universities—and the many other universities with noble aspirations—should humbly accept their roles, and become mustard seeds for the future.

In discovering the truth of the Gospel without compromise and vigorously searching for truth both in science and technology as well as in the humanities, such colleges and universities have a unique opportunity for reshaping their troubled societies. History is giving us now unprecedented opportunities to reconsider old “scientific dogmas,” especially in the humanities, and the new discoveries in science and technology could lead us to a better understanding of the drama of the human person and its destiny in view of the Gospel.

Readers may visit the website of Pázmány Péter Catholic University at www.ppke.hu. Click on the English version (unless you read Magyar).

Publisher’s Gloss: Dr. Roska’s wife Susanna is a brilliant concert pianist. Their son Peter is a Catholic priest.