Pope Francis received the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, at the Vatican on Wednesday.
The meeting, which Orbán described as “an opportunity for peace,” lasted 35 minutes and took place in a room near the Paul VI classroom in the Vatican and not in the Apostolic Palace, as is customary, because it preceded the pope’s general audience.
Just prior to his meeting with the Holy Father, Orbán, a Calvinist, attended a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
In the traditional exchange of gifts, the Holy Father presented the Hungarian prime minister with a terra cotta work titled “Tenderness and Love” in addition to several volumes of papal documents, this year’s “Message for Peace,” and a book on the Statio Orbis of 2020.
For his part, Orbán presented Pope Francis with a copy of “The Life of Jesus Christ,” written in 1896 by French Dominican friar Louis Henri Didon, creator of the motto of the modern Olympic Games, “Faster, higher, stronger.” He also gave him a map of the Holy Land dated 1700.
After the audience with the Holy Father, Orbán met with the secretary of state of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and with Monsignor Mirosław Wachowski, undersecretary for Relations with States.
According to the Holy See’s press office, the meeting took place “in a cordial atmosphere” of “solid and fruitful bilateral relations.”
During the meeting, “deep gratitude” was expressed for “the commitment of the Catholic Church in promoting the development and well-being of Hungarian society.”
In addition, issues of international relevance were addressed, such as the war in Ukraine, with special emphasis on its humanitarian consequences and efforts to promote peace.
Pro-family allies
Other issues discussed in the conversations included the central role of the family and the protection of new generations.
Since taking office in 2010, Orbán has promoted various policies to support families, which have contributed to an increase in the birth rate and a reduction in the number of abortions.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin meets with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Dec. 4, 2024, at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
Also addressed was Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, a position that the country assumed on July 1 and will maintain until Dec. 31.
During this period, under Orbán’s leadership, Hungary has worked to strengthen the EU’s defense policy, contain illegal immigration, and address demographic challenges, among other priority objectives.
The occasion marked the fifth time Pope Francis has met with Orbán. During a previous audience in April 2022, they also focused their conversations on the war in Ukraine and the Ukrainian refugees received in Hungary.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2020 / 06:53 pm (CNA).- The Pontifical Academy for Life has defended its latest document on the coronavirus crisis following criticism that it did not mention God.
A spokesman said July 30 that the text, “Humana Communitas in … […]
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 2, 2023 / 05:15 am (CNA).
On Palm Sunday, Pope Francis said Jesus voluntarily took on the pain and abandonment of his Passion and Crucifixion so that he could be with us in whatever sorrow or difficulty we might be experiencing.
Jesus “experienced abandonment in order not to leave us prey to despair, in order to stay at our side forever,” the pope said during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square April 2.
“He did this for me, for you,” he said, “because whenever you or I or anyone else seems pinned to the wall — and we have seen someone pinned to the wall — you see someone lost in a blind alley, plunged into the abyss of abandonment, sucked into a whirlwind of ‘whys’ without answer, there can still be some hope…”
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Pope Francis presided over the Palm Sunday Mass one day after being discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
The pope was admitted to the hospital for three days beginning March 29 for treatment for a bronchitis infection, the Vatican said.
An estimated 60,000 people were at the papal Mass, according to the Vatican Gendarmes.
In his homily, Francis spoke in a soft voice as he emphasized that whatever situation of abandonment we find ourselves in, Jesus is at our side.
The pope also said that we will find Jesus in those who are abandoned, recalling the death in November last year of a homeless man from Germany, who was found under the colonnade of St. Peter‘s Square.
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Jesus “wants us to care for our brothers and sisters who resemble him most, those experiencing extreme suffering and solitude,” he said. “Today, brothers and sisters, there are entire peoples who are exploited and abandoned; the poor live on our streets and we look the other way, we turn around; there are migrants who are no longer faces but numbers; prisoners are disowned; people written off as problems.”
Pope Francis said these people are “Christs” for us: “People who are abandoned, invisible, hidden, discarded with white gloves,” such as the unborn, the isolated elderly, the forgotten sick, the abandoned disabled, and the lonely young.
“Jesus, in his abandonment, asks us to open our eyes and hearts to all who find themselves abandoned,” he said.
Pope Francis entered St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile April 2. He was driven to the central obelisk for the blessing of the palms and the proclamation of a reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew and the singing of Psalm 23.
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
The blessing followed the procession of cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, and laypeople carrying palm fronds, olive branches, and the large weaved palms called “parmureli” to commemorate Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. Pope Francis has not led the procession since 2019.
For the start of Mass, the pope was again driven in the popemobile from the obelisk to the altar in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, which will lead in to the sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, and concludes with the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection beginning at the Easter Vigil.
On Palm Sunday, the Mass includes the reading of the Lord’s Passion from the Gospel of St. Matthew.
In his homily on April 2, Pope Francis focused on a line from the Gospel and repeated in the Psalm — Jesus’ cry of abandonment to the Father — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
“‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ In the Bible, the word ‘forsake’ is powerful,” the pope said.
An estimated 60,000 people attended Pope Francis’ Mass for Palm Sunday April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
He noted how one might feel forsaken “at moments of extreme pain: love that fails, or is rejected or betrayed; children who are rejected and aborted; situations of repudiation, the lot of widows and orphans; broken marriages, forms of social exclusion, injustice and oppression; the solitude of sickness.”
“In a word, in the drastic severing of the bonds that unite us to others,” he said. “There [Jesus] tells us this word: abandonment. Christ brought all of this to the cross; upon his shoulders, he bore the sins of the world. And at the supreme moment, Jesus, the only begotten, beloved Son of the Father, experienced a situation utterly alien to his very being: the abandonment, the distance of God.”
“But, why did it have to come to this? For us. There is no other answer: Us,” Francis underlined. “He became one of us to the very end, in order to be completely and definitively one with us.”
At the end of his homily, Pope Francis remained in silence for over two and a half minutes before the singing of the Creed.
Jesus, the pope said, “has endured the distance of abandonment in order to take up into his love every possible distance that we can feel. So that each of us might say: in my failings — each of you has fallen many times — and I can say in my failings, in my desolation, whenever I feel betrayed or I have betrayed someone, when I feel cast aside or I have cast aside others, or when I feel forsaken or have forsaken others, we can think that Jesus was abandoned, betrayed, cast aside.”
An estimated 60,000 people attended Pope Francis’ Mass for Palm Sunday April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
In our failures, we can remember that Jesus is at our side, Pope Francis said. “When I feel lost and confused, when I feel that I can’t go on, he is with me, he is there. In the thousand fits of ‘why…?’ and with many ‘whys’ unanswered, he is there.”
At the conclusion of Mass, Pope Francis led the Angelus, a traditional prayer honoring Mary.
In a brief message before the prayer, he invited Catholics to live Holy Week “as the tradition of God’s holy faithful people teaches us, that is, accompanying the Lord Jesus with faith and love.”
“Let us learn from our Mother, the Virgin Mary,” he said. “She followed her Son with the closeness of her heart; she was one soul with him and, although she did not understand everything, together with him she surrendered herself fully to the will of God the Father.”
“May Our Lady help us to be close to Jesus present in the suffering, discarded, abandoned people. May Our Lady take us by the hand to Jesus present in these people,” he said. “To all, happy journey toward Easter.”
From the popemobile, Pope Francis greeted those gathered in the square and in the adjoining thoroughfare after the Mass.
The full text of Pope Francis’ homily for Palm Sunday 2023 can be read here.
Pope Francis receives a facsimile of a 1919 letter by Adolf Hitler for the Vatican archives during an audience with a delegation of Simon Wiesenthal Center at the Vatican, June 22, 2022. / Vatican Media
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