Minister: there were no disagreements between Pope Francis and PM Orbán

Speaking about the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress Budapest hosted last week, Gergely Gulyás, minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, said on yesterday’s government info that the government regarded Pope Francis’s participation as recognition for Hungary, adding that neither the current pontiff nor his predecessor had taken part in any other Eucharistic congress. “It is a rare honour…” he said.

Closing Mass celebrated by the pope on Sunday in Heroes’ Square drew 250,000 worshippers, he said. Gulyás expressed thanks to the 20,000 people involved in organising the event, and praised Hungary’s police force and counter terrorism force as well as its disaster management authority and intelligence services.

Gulyás

slammed media reports of “tension” at Pope Francis’s meeting with the president and the prime minister as “lies”, saying there were no disagreements at the meeting.

He said the pope had made it clear that he considered Hungary’s family policy “exemplary” and considered it important that the government wasn’t relativising the idea of the family. “A family consists of a mother, a father and children, full stop,” Gulyás quoted the pope as saying. Commenting on a fresh European Parliament resolution on the rights of the LGBTQ community to same sex marriage, Gulyas said

“these kinds of papers aren’t too relevant” and belonged “in the waste paper bin”.

He added that “these kinds of activities” by the EP were “a part of the entertainment industry that’s even more expensive than Hollywood”.

As regards the Afghans evacuated to Hungary last month, Gulyas said their asylum procedures were under way. Since their lives are in danger and because they helped the Hungarian troops in Afghanistan, they

are eligible for refugee status,

he said. Gulyás added, at the same time, that not everyone the government had been looking to evacuate was in Hungary. “If we can, we will help them,” he said, without elaborating.