00:00 Mark, if you can hear me, I was asking you what some of the main themes Pope Francis
00:05 is going to address during his visit.
00:08 It's my pleasure to be here.
00:11 Thank you.
00:15 What are some of the main themes of the Pope's visit to Hungary?
00:19 Well, many Hungarians were surprised that Pope Francis decided to come back to Hungary
00:26 since he was actually in the country just as recently as 2021.
00:31 The Pope has a special pastoral concern for Hungary, I think, because Prime Minister
00:35 Viktor Orbán is leading the country, including Hungary's Catholic Church, in a nationalist
00:41 and very xenophobic direction.
00:44 Orbán frequently uses racist, even some say fascist, language to talk about Hungary's
00:50 racial and ethnic homogeneity.
00:53 He even claims to be a defender of Europe's Christian values.
00:57 And Orbán and Pope Francis have repeatedly clashed over these claims.
01:02 The last time the Pope was in Hungary, he said that Hungarians should open their arms
01:07 to everyone.
01:08 It was a not very subtle criticism of Hungary's direction.
01:13 And the Pope has a number of opportunities this time around to accompany Hungarians away
01:18 from xenophobia and on a truly Christian path toward openness and love of one's neighbors.
01:24 I mean, this is exactly what Pope Francis has been doing in his first couple of hours
01:30 in Hungary.
01:31 He's warned against rising nationalism and infantile belligerence.
01:35 He says Christian values cannot be based on rigidity and closed mindedness and something
01:40 very pointedly, which probably is a dig at the prime minister himself.
01:44 He said accepting those with different languages and customs is a sign of fraternity.
01:49 Absolutely.
01:52 This has been a theme that Pope Francis has returned to again and again throughout his
01:57 papacy from the beginning in 2013.
02:01 And certainly it has special resonance in Hungary today, where in 2015, Viktor Orbán
02:08 using again, highly racist and very xenophobic and even some would say fascist language,
02:15 resisted accepting refugees and migrants from Syria and other war torn countries into Europe.
02:23 And Pope Francis and Viktor Orbán really clashed over that issue of how Christians
02:29 should open themselves to strangers and to those who are socially marginalized.
02:35 And what we've seen from countries like Hungary, like Poland, we've seen the about face when
02:42 it comes to accepting migrants from Ukraine, for instance.
02:47 Last year we saw, you know, Polish residents waiting, welcoming Ukrainian refugees, whereas
02:55 it wasn't the same for the Syrians and the Afghans fleeing a conflict in their respective
03:01 countries.
03:02 That is absolutely true.
03:04 And yet at the same time, we should absolutely praise Hungary's Catholic Church for the work
03:10 that it has done to offer a warm and very humane welcome to those who are fleeing the
03:17 war in Ukraine.
03:20 While Hungary has taken in many Ukrainian refugees, the number is actually far fewer
03:25 than other countries, like for instance Poland.
03:28 And there has even been accusations of corruption in the use of EU funds targeted for earmarked
03:34 for refugees, including the Hungarian government artificially inflating the numbers of refugees
03:42 who have applied to stay permanently in Hungary, all so that the government can get more money
03:48 from the EU.
03:49 So really Hungary's record is marked by certain negative accusations, and there does absolutely
03:56 need to be more transparency and more scrutiny and oversight of the way that Hungary is using
04:02 EU funds to help refugees from Ukraine.
04:06 Let's talk about the Pope's involvement in possibly bringing out a peaceful solution
04:11 to the war in Ukraine, because this is something he has been asking for in the past.
04:16 He's spoken about the need for negotiation and mediation to bring that war to an end.
04:23 The Ukrainians, of course, want to see things won on the battlefield.
04:28 China in the past few weeks has tried to position itself as a possible mediator.
04:33 Could we see the Pope do more in the weeks and months to come?
04:38 Well, certainly war is raging just across the border from Hungary in Ukraine, where
04:44 I am currently.
04:46 Russian missiles and bombs are taking innocent human lives in this country.
04:51 Pope Francis has called for an immediate cessation of violence.
04:54 He has called for peace.
04:56 So actually has Viktor Ordovan.
04:59 And I think many people are looking to the Pope this time around in his visit to Hungary
05:03 to clarify that the two men actually want a very different kind of peace.
05:09 The Pope's calls for peace come from an instinctive desire, I think, to end human suffering as
05:15 soon as possible.
05:17 The Pope has a deeply principled belief in the sanctity of human life that comes from
05:22 Catholic social teaching.
05:24 Ordovan, on the other hand, he is playing a calculated geopolitical game.
05:30 He is the NATO leader with the closest ties to Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime.
05:36 The peace talks that Ordovan is recommending really would send a signal that Ukraine has
05:41 de facto recognized Russia's illegal annexation of its territory.
05:46 Ordovan has helped, in fact, himself foster, to foster the illusion that the two men, Pope
05:53 Francis and Viktor Ordovan, are on the same page.
05:56 He has even said that Hungary and the Vatican stand together in the peace camp.
06:01 But that is absolutely not true.
06:03 The two men have very different motivations in calling for peace.
06:07 And Hungarians, not to mention the entire world, needs to know that.
06:12 Could the Pope's visit to Hungary change anything for the LGBTQ+ community in the country?
06:21 Hungary's government has recently passed a new law that will allow its citizens to report
06:27 same-sex families with children to local authorities.
06:31 And that means many healthy, loving families could be reprimanded for preaching what Ordovan
06:37 really falsely calls the constitutionally recognized role of marriage.
06:42 The least the Hungarian Catholic Church can do is to object that in this case a particular
06:47 group of human beings is being criminalized.
06:51 It's really impermissible.
06:52 On this matter, Catholic social teaching is clear and unambiguous.
06:57 And so is Pope Francis, for that matter.
06:59 Pope Francis has made remarks to this effect, for instance, during his visit to South Sudan
07:04 and to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
07:07 It would be entirely appropriate for Pope Francis to say once again, this time in Hungary,
07:13 that laws criminalizing LGBT persons are a sin and an injustice.
07:19 Mark Roscoe-Lusser, we're going to have to leave you there.
07:21 Thank you very much for joining us on the program today.
07:23 Thank you.
07:25 In other news, former EU...
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