Speaking about the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress Budapest hosted last week, Prime Minister’s Office chief Gergely Gulyás said 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, Gulyás 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”.
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