Cardinal Erdő: "We Catholics in Hungary await the Pope with great affection".Pope Francis in Hungary: joy and political speculation ahead of the short visitPope Francis left Rome on Friday morning, April 28. The Pontiff's destination was Hungary, where he landed after a flight accompanied by many journalists.
At 11:00 a.m., the welcoming ceremony took place, during which there was a meeting with the President of the Republic, Katalin Novák, and with the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán. After the ceremony, the Pope will meet with members of civil society and the diplomatic corps, and later with priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians and pastoral ministers.
During his address to the authorities, Francis described Budapest as "a central place in history" and as a city "called to be a protagonist of the present and the future". For this reason, the Pope took advantage of his intervention to give some ideas, taking Budapest as "city of history, city of bridges and city of saints".
City of history
The Holy Father considered the Hungarian capital as a city of history due to its antiquity, although "its splendor takes us to modernity, when it was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire".
In spite of everything, its history knows of painful events, "not only invasions of distant times but, in the last century, violence and oppression provoked by the Nazi and Communist dictatorships, how can we forget 1956? And, during the Second World War, the deportation of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, with the rest of the population of Jewish origin locked up in the ghetto and subjected to numerous atrocities".
However, in the face of these events there were courageous people, such as Nuncio Angelo Rotta, whom Francis mentioned. The various situations that Budapest has gone through make it "the center of a country that knows the value of freedom and that, after having paid a high price to dictatorships, carries within itself the mission of guarding the treasure of democracy and the dream of peace".
Community policy
To draw a parallel with European history, the Pope reminded those present of the founding of Budapest, 150 years ago, "with the union of three cities: Buda and Óbuda, to the west of the Danube, and Pest, located on the opposite shore. The birth of this great capital in the heart of the continent evokes the unitary path undertaken by Europe, in which Hungary finds its own vital channel".
These manifestations of unitThe passion for community politics and for multilateralism seems to be a beautiful memory of the past. "The passion for community politics and for multilateralism seems to be a beautiful memory of the past; it seems that we are witnessing the sad decline of the choral dream of peace, while the soloists of war prevail".
The Pontiff warned that the idea of community among nations is being lost, "it even seems that politics at the international level has the effect of inflaming tempers rather than solving problems, forgetting the maturity it reached after the horrors of war and regressing to a kind of warlike childishness".
Europe, fundamental
Francis encouraged the fostering of a spirit of community in Europe, "because Europe, thanks to its history, represents the memory of humanity and is therefore called to play its proper role: that of uniting those who are far away, welcoming peoples into its bosom and not allowing anyone to remain forever an enemy."
City of bridges
The Pope then spoke of Budapest as a city of bridges. "Seen from above, the pearl of the Danube shows its peculiarity precisely thanks to the bridges that unite its parts, harmonizing its configuration with that of the great river. This harmony with the environment leads me to congratulate the ecological care that this country carries out with great effort".
The Holy Father took the opportunity to distinguish between unity and uniformity. Again, returning to Europe, Francis quoted one of the founding fathers of the European Union who said: "Europe will exist and nothing that constitutes the glory and happiness of every nation can be lost. It is precisely in a larger society, in a more effective harmony, that the individual can be affirmed".
Therefore, the Pope explained, what is needed is harmony, "a whole that does not crush the parts and parts that feel well integrated into the whole". Francis pointed out that he thinks "of a Europe that is not a hostage of the parts, falling prey to self-referential populism, but that also does not become a fluid or gaseous reality, a kind of abstract supranationalism that does not take into account the life of the peoples".
City of saints
The Pope also pointed out Budapest as a city of saints and made reference to the first king of Hungary, St. Stephen. This implies that "Hungarian history is marked by holiness, and not only of a king, but of a whole family: his wife, Blessed Gisela, and his son St. Emeric".
That first monarch, with a Christian spirit, wrote to his son: "I recommend you to be kind not only to your family and relatives, or to the powerful and wealthy, or to your neighbor and your inhabitants, but also to foreigners". He also left him another piece of advice: "Be meek so as never to fight against the truth".
Therefore, Francis warned that the monarch's behavior harmonized truth with meekness. His reign "is a great teaching of faith. Christian values cannot be witnessed through rigidity and closed-mindedness, because the truth of Christ entails meekness and gentleness, in the spirit of the Beatitudes."
The Pope also mentioned St. Elizabeth, "a precious stone of the Gospel," who dedicated her life to the sick and had a hospital built for them.
Sound secularity
The Holy Father concluded his address to the authorities by thanking them "for the promotion of charitable and educational works inspired by these values and in which the local Catholic structure is engaged, as well as for the concrete support to so many Christians who are experiencing difficulties in the world, especially in Syria and Lebanon".
Francis took the opportunity to recall that collaboration between Church and State is important, but that to be fruitful "it needs to safeguard the appropriate distinctions". For this reason, "a healthy secularism does good, so that it does not fall into generalized secularism, which is allergic to any sacred aspect and then immolates itself on the altars of profit".
On the other hand, the Pope made reference to the reception of refugees, saying that "it is an issue that we must face together, communally, because in the context in which we live, the consequences, sooner or later, will have repercussions on everyone".
The speech ended by thanking those present for listening and showing the closeness of the Holy Father to the Hungarian people: "I thank you for having listened to what I had intended to share with you, I assure you of my closeness and my prayer to all Hungarians with a special remembrance for those who live outside the homeland and for those I have met during my life and who have done me so much good".
A short trip
On Saturday 29, Pope Francis will continue his visit to the country. In the morning he will have a meeting with children, and then he will go to speak with the poor and refugees. He will also visit the Greco-Latin community, meet with young people and have a private meeting with members of the Society of Jesus at the nunciature.
On Sunday, the last day of the trip, the Holy Father will celebrate Mass in the morning, after which there will be a meeting with university students and cultural representatives. At 17:30, there will be a farewell ceremony after which the Pope will return to Rome.
