The Mass in front of the National Assembly in Budapest is the culminating event of the Pope's three day visit.Continue reading
The Vatican is taking part in a peace mission to Ukraine to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Pope Francis said in an interview on Sunday evening on the papal plane on his way to Rome after a three-day visit to Hungary.
“I am ready to do whatever is necessary. A mission is under way, but it is not yet public. When it is, I will reveal it,” the head of the Catholic Church said, without giving further details of those efforts. “I believe that peace can only be made by opening channels. Peace can never be achieved through isolation,” he emphasized.
Pope Francis said he had discussed the situation in Ukraine with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Hilarion, bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and the current metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary, and stressed that everyone was interested in the path to peace.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine last February, the Catholic Church leader has been calling for peace on an almost weekly basis and has reiterated his willingness to act as a mediator between Kiev and Moscow. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal discussed peace efforts, the humanitarian situation and the churches in Ukraine with Pope Francis at the Vatican last Thursday. Shmyhal also invited the head of the Catholic Church to visit the Ukrainian capital.
On his way back to Rome, Pope Francis, thanking the members of the press escort for their work, said of his visit to Hungary that it had been “three intense but good days”.
In response to a question, Pope Francis recalled that he first came into contact with Hungarians in the 1960s, when he studied in Chile.
There, he met, among others, Hungarian Jesuits who had been expelled from their homeland and Hungarian nuns who ran a school not far from Buenos Aires, where he, as special chaplain then, visited twice a month. The Pope also mentioned the association of Hungarian worldly believers in the Argentine capital. He added that he remembered two Hungarian words, goulash and tokaji wine, but he did not forget how touched he was by the pain of the displaced Hungarians who longed to return home.
Pope Francis mentioned the nun sisters of Mary Ward, known as the founders of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the story he had heard of how they tried to persuade Cardinal Mindszenty, who was tortured under the Communist regime, to go to Rome. Pope Francis said he had been informed of the enthusiastic mood of 1956, which lasted only a short time, and the disappointment that followed.
He highlighted that his image of Hungarians had not changed and that the current visit had enriched it, adding that he has experienced the same style he knew before.
The Pope noted that the Hungarians he knew, even the simplest people, were highly educated. He added that the Hungarians spoke a foreign language because they did not speak Hungarian outside Hungary, “except in heaven, because it takes an eternity to learn Hungarian”.
Featured photo via MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher
