Pope Francis, who has made welcoming migrants, embracing minorities and warning against nationalism central to his pontificate, visited Budapest on Friday for the second time in less than two years. The trip gives Prime Minister Viktor Orban, arguably Europe’s foremost opponent of migrants, closest ally of Russia and most outspoken critic of gay rights, a political gift he certainly won’t waste.
During a 10-year pontificate in which Francis has met multiple strongmen and dictators to both protect his flock and ensure human rights and peace, he has rarely confronted his hosts, seeking instead areas of agreement, even if it is the risk of legitimizing policy. disgusting.
Rather than chastising Mr Orban on Friday, Francis indirectly begged the leader, who portrays himself as the defender of Christian values in Europe against foreign migrants and interference from Brussels, to be a good Christian and a constructive participant in the European unit.
Speaking to dignitaries at a former convent in Budapest’s Castle District, Francis, his 41st foreign visit and the first since he was rushed to hospital last month, spoke of
how “Christian values cannot be represented by rigidity and narrow-mindedness.” And he warned against a “certain tendency, sometimes presented in the name of indigenous traditions and even of faith, to withdraw into oneself”.
He spoke out against the fading of mature statesmanship towards the building of a united Europe as “nationalism is on the rise and increasingly harsh judgments and language are used to confront others.” He complained of an “adolescent belligerence” and “self-referential forms of populism”, and spoke of the need to “welcome other peoples and refuse to regard anyone as an eternal enemy”.
But Francis, who called the visit an opportunity to embrace the Hungarian church again, didn’t seem angry. On the contrary, he seemed in good spirits, happily eating the bread brought to him by children in traditional dress, and abandoning his wheelchair for a cane as he toured the Sandor Palace with President Katalin Novak, who spoke to him in Spanish.
The Vatican has said the pope’s three-day apostolic visit to Hungarian Catholics, during which he will meet Mr Orbán, as well as refugees and the poor, is completely different from a 2021 stopover he made in Budapest for a few hours to celebrate. celebrate Mass at the end of a week-long Catholic convention.
Vatican officials argued that the pope’s comments made it clear that he would not be used as a pawn. But critics of Mr. Orban worry that no matter how noble Francis’s intentions may be, his journey simply plays into Mr. Orban’s hands.
“In the history of the country, this is truly a great moment that you came to see us, Your Holiness,” Mr Orban said as the two sat down for a private meeting. He added that “this is also a reconfirmation for us”, that the two had to follow a common line on the Christian path, “which is very difficult in today’s Europe” and “also in this war that cries out for peace”.
Mr Orban was particularly elated, Hungarian officials said, as he was unsure whether the pope would return.
After the 2021 visit, Eduard Habsburg, Hungary’s ambassador to the Holy See, said “we thought that was it!” Instead, Hungary is now pulling out all the stops to welcome Francis back.
“I don’t know how the Vatican reads this, or why they decided to do it,” said Stefano Bottoni, a historian at the University of Florence who lives in Budapest. “But in Hungary, the Pope’s visit has become an extraordinary showcase for the regime.”
The locals agreed that Mr. Orban would not pass up this opportunity.
“He’ll use this,” said Kristof Polgar, 25, who walked near Budapest’s St. Stephen’s Basilica on Thursday after a fencing lesson. He said Francis was especially popular with the older generation of Catholics whom Mr Orban relied on for political support, and that “Orban builds on that and he does it perfectly.”
In 2021, when Francis suggested that he might not meet Mr Orban on his way to an extended stay in Slovakia, Mr Orban’s allies in the news media, where his party has the upper hand, insulted Francis for despising Hungary, because he “behaved in an anti-Christian manner, and for “causing extraordinary harm to the Christian world.”
During that journey, Francis Orban also indirectly sent a message that God is not a strong man who silences enemies, and that religious roots, while essential for a country, also enable it to open and extend “its arms to all”. stretch.
For years, the government of Mr. Orbán tried to blur the differences between Hungary and the Holy See by emphasizing their similarities, including the institution by Mr. Orbán from a secretary of state for aid to persecuted Christians and his defense of the traditional family. Mr Habsburg, the ambassador, said the Vatican had even returned requests to Hungary to more publicly support the Holy See and its views on human sexuality and gender roles in multilateral settings.
On Friday, Francis lamented the imposition of what he called “ideological colonization,” which he said would “abolish differences, as in the case of the so-called gender theory.”
But Hungarian officials argue that as much as the pope and Mr Orban are divided on the issue of migration, they are in agreement when it comes to their desire for peace in Ukraine.
“I wonder, thinking not least of war-torn Ukraine,” Francis said Friday, “where are his creative efforts for peace? Where are they?”
In the first months of the war, Francis did not speak of Russia’s aggression.
But amid criticism from Ukrainian leaders and with questions about his legacy, Francis spoke out more clearly against the invasion, saying in August that the Russian Federation had launched a war that was “morally unjust, unacceptable, barbaric, senseless, abhorrent and sacrilegious. ”
Mr Orban, on the other hand, has refused to supply arms to Kiev and has threatened to veto European Union sanctions against Moscow. Hungary still receives much of its gas from Russia and it blocked efforts to kill Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, Mr. Putin’s religious patron and apologist, who once warned Francis not to “turn himself into Putin’s altar boy.” punish.
Yet Mr. Orban, increasingly isolated and eager to display a papal seal of approval, has attempted to portray himself and the pope as being on the same page as they have both called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations. Speaking in February, he argued that they were the only ones in Europe calling for peace in Ukraine.
“So they seem to have the same idea,” said Mr Habsburg, calling them “the only two voices in Europe who have said it that way”.
Analysts say this is just Mr Orban doing what he does best.
“Orban is the king of the opportunists,” said Matteo Zola, a journalist and editor of East Journal, an online newspaper focused on Central and Eastern Europe. “Hungary wants to show itself as the center around which to build a dialogue between Moscow and Europe or the West. And the Pope’s journey legitimizes this role.”
But for Mr. Orban, he added, “it’s all capital to spend in the country.”
Francis will meet with some of the Ukrainian refugees left in Hungary on Saturday. When Mr Orban visited the Vatican last year for his first official state visit, a development his administration says was essential to Francis’ official visit, the pope thanked him for accepting the refugees.
“The question of acceptance and welcome is a heated one in our time, and is certainly complex,” Francis said, but he said Christians should welcome those “who flee in desperation from conflict, poverty and climate change.” He added: “It is therefore urgent for Europe to work on safe and legal corridors and well-established processes to meet a breakthrough challenge.”
But public opinion in Hungary, including among Catholics, is so supportive of Mr Orbán on the issue of migrants that even if Francis threw down a glove, analysts doubted it would matter.
“The weight of the things he will say about migration,” said the historian Bottoni “is zero.”
