Pope Francis thanks Hungarians for welcoming Ukrainian refugees
Pope Francis has thanked Hungarians for welcoming Ukrainian refugees and urged them to help anyone in need, as he begged for a culture of charity in a country where the prime minister has justified firm anti-immigration policies.
Francis, who is on the second day of a visit to Hungary, met refugees and poor people at St Elizabeth’s church, which was named after a Hungarian princess who renounced her wealth to dedicate herself to the poor as a follower of the pope’s namesake, St Francis of Assisi.
Speaking in the white-brick church in Budapest, Francis recalled that the gospels instruct Christians to show love and compassion to all, especially those experiencing poverty and pain and “even those who are not believers”.
“The love that Jesus gives us and commands us to practise can help to uproot the evils of indifference and selfishness from society, from our cities and the places where we live – indifference is a plague – and to rekindle hope for a new, more just and fraternal world, where all can feel at home,” he said.
Hungary’s nationalist government has implemented firm anti-immigration policies and refused to accept many asylum seekers trying to enter the country through its southern border, leading to prolonged legal disputes with the EU.
The conservative populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said migration threatens to replace Europe’s Christian culture. Orbán, who has held office since 2010, has hinged various election campaigns on the threats he alleges migrants and refugees pose to Hungarians.
His government has consistently rejected asylum seekers from the Middle
East and Africa, but 2.5 million Ukrainians fleeing war in their country have found open doors. About 35,000 of the refugees remain in Hungary and have registered for temporary protection there, according to the UN.
Monetary assistance for the refugees, however, has been meagre. Fewer have opted to stay in Hungary than any other country in eastern Europe except Belarus.
One who has chosen to stay was Olesia Misiats, a nurse who worked in a Kyiv Covid-19 hospital when she fled with her mother and two daughters on 24 February 2022. She went first to the Netherlands, but high costs compelled her to move to Hungary, where she said she has found an apartment and given birth to her third daughter, Mila, who was in the pews on Saturday with her mother and sister.
“Here it’s safe,” Misiats said of her new life. She said she hoped to return to Kyiv one day, but that for now she and her children were adapting. “I want to go back home. There it’s my life, it was my life,” she said. “But the war changed my life.”
Francis praised Hungary’s Catholic church for providing aid to people fleeing war and urged continued charity toward any who needs help.
He began his Saturday by visiting children who have visual and physical disabilities. The first big public event of his visit, a youth rally at Bupapest’s sports stadium, is scheduled for the afternoon.
He plans to conclude his visit with an open-air mass on Sunday and a speech at Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest.