Those who wanted to be close to the Savior in the past week could do so best in Budapest.

In any case, hundreds of posters, banners and flags in Hungary's capital read: “Találkozz Jézussal Budapesten” (Meet Jesus in Budapest).

The occasion was the 52nd World Eucharistic Congress from September 5th to 12th, which the government in Budapest supported with all its might.

The closing mass celebrated by Pope Francis on Heldenplatz on Sunday lunchtime then gives the opportunity to meet the representative of Christ on earth.

Matthias Rüb

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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The fundamental importance of the sacrament of the Eucharist in the life and mission of the Church has been negotiated at International Eucharistic Congresses since 1881.

The congresses take place every four years at different locations.

The 52nd edition originally planned for 2020 under the motto “All my sources arise in you” (Psalm 87: 7) had to be postponed for a year due to the pandemic.

It is the exception that a Pope personally comes to a Eucharistic Congress.

Usually he sends a delegate.

The last time Pope John Paul II attended the 47th Congress in Rome in 2000.

In the run-up to Francis' four-day visit to Hungary and Slovakia, the Holy See had repeatedly emphasized that the seven-hour visit to Budapest on Sunday was not actually a visit to Hungary, but only the participation of the Holy Father in an event organized by the universal Church .

In Slovakia, on the other hand, the Pope stays for almost four days and is received by the state and government in accordance with the protocol.

Francis stayed three times in the nunciature in Bratislava (Pressburg). From the capital he made his day visits to Košice in the east and to the Marian pilgrimage site of Šaštín-Stráže in north-west Slovakia.

The issue of migration

In an interview with a Spanish radio station at the end of August, Francis had hardly diplomatically disguised his displeasure with the Hungarian leadership under the right-wing conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He did not even know whether there would be a meeting with Orbán in Budapest, said the Pope - although the diplomats of the Holy See and the government in Budapest had long since had a short private meeting in the rooms of the Museum of Fine Arts on Heroes' Square had to have agreed. The Pope went on to say that he had not yet thought about what he would tell Orbán: “I am not walking around with a pre-formulated text. When I meet someone, I look them in the eye and say what's on my mind. "

Especially when it comes to migration policy and interreligious dialogue, Francis and Orbán are worlds apart. Francis' statement from 2016 about President Donald Trump, according to which “no Christian” is anyone who has border walls erected, could easily be transferred to Orbán: The Hungarian Prime Minister had already started in 2015 to join the southern border with Serbia (and later also with Croatia) to have a fence fastened in order to block the Balkan route for refugees and migrants from the Near and Middle East.

Orbán expressly opposes the migration of Muslims to Hungary and to Europe in general and enjoys the role of defender of Christian-Occidental values ​​and traditions. Budapest therefore welcomes Christian displaced persons and refugees from Ukraine to Hungary. This is diametrically opposed to Francis' call for a general culture of welcome for migrants and for brotherhood between religions.

In the case of the government in Budapest promoting traditional family structures, on the other hand, there are points of contact with the teaching of the universal Church. Almost two weeks ago, Hungarian Family Minister Katalin Novák received the Thomas More Prize from the International Catholic Legislators Network (ICLN) for her work “in strengthening families and promoting marriages”. Like all the other participants in the 12th International Conference of Catholic Legislators, she was received by Pope Francis for an audience on the occasion.

The fact that the Calvinist Orbán also enjoys sympathy among Catholic clergy and bishops in Hungary was shown by the complaint about the allegedly unbalanced reporting in the international media about Hungary by the chairman of the Hungarian Bishops' Conference, Györer Bishop András Veres, shortly before the Pope's visit. "We often hear harsh criticism that does not reflect the true circumstances," Veres told the Holy See media portal Vatican News. Hungary and the country's church are "not properly" portrayed in the media. The Eucharistic Congress with tens of thousands of participants showed that a core of the population was committed to Christian values, said Veres.

According to the latest census, just under 40 percent of the 9.7 million inhabitants describe themselves as Catholics, and the trend is falling. Nevertheless, Veres expressed the hope that the testimony that Hungarians had given the Congress “after so many years of atheism and communism” would inspire other countries.