Secretary of State: “Pope Francis spoke about race like Orbán”
More than a week after his speech in Tusnádfürdő, Viktor Orbán’s speech is still the talk of the town at home and abroad. European Parliament leaders say the Hungarian PM’s ideas on mixed races run counter to the EU’s core values. Academic János Kertész said because of the speech, Orbán should resign. Now Zoltán Kovács, State Secretary for International Communications, has said that Pope Francis used the term “race” in the same sense as Orbán.
After his controversial speech in Tusnádfürdő, Romania, Orbán tried to save the day in Vienna by saying that he defines himself as an anti-immigration politician, but for him, it is not a racial or biological issue, but a cultural one. He said that he was talking about race in cultural terms, and that in Tusnádfürdő, he was just being ambiguous, which sometimes happens, Telex.hu writes.
On Monday, 1 August, the Minister of State held a press conference on the 20 August celebrations and fireworks, followed by an interview with RTL. Then, Kovács said that Pope Francis used the word “race” in a similar cultural sense to Orbán’s when answering journalists’ questions on the plane home from Canada.
Last week, the Pope took part in a penitential pilgrimage to Canada, where he apologised for the abuse of indigenous children in Canada. He was later criticised for not using the word “genocide”.
He was asked about this on the plane by Canadian Press journalist Brittany Hobson. In response, Francis said that he had not thought of using the term at the time, but this time he said that he considered what happened to be genocide, which he himself condemned. It was here that the following sentence was uttered:
“To take children, to change their culture, their way of thinking, their traditions – to change a race, a whole culture… yes, [for that] I use the word genocide.” Kovács is therefore right that the Pope said the word, and also that he did so in a cultural context. However, he used it in the opposite context, as a condemnation of discrimination on the basis of culture and race.
Source: Telex.hu, Index.hu, rtl.hu