In Orban’s Hungary, Pope Urges Bishops to Embrace Diversity

On a quick trip to the country, Francis met with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Hungary’s hard-right leader, before celebrating a public Mass.

BUDAPEST — Pope Francis used his short time in Budapest on Sunday to urge his bishops to embrace diversity and send a message to the country’s hard-right, anti-migrant leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, that God is not a strongman who silences enemies and that religious roots, while vital for a country, also allow it to open up and extend “its arms toward everyone.” The seven-hour visit, ostensibly a spiritual layover to celebrate the concluding Mass of a weeklong international conference on the Eucharist, was the first international trip for Francis since undergoing major surgery this summer. It opened a four-day visit to neighboring Slovakia, and the disparity of time spent in the two countries has prompted Hungarian prelates to lobby for a longer stay and allies of Mr. Orban to excoriate the pope, who regularly criticizes “national populism,” for the perceived snub. Mr. Orban has portrayed himself as a defender of Christian Europe, and he has ramped up connections to church traditionalists, many of whom are critical of Francis, ahead of expected elections in April. Some in the Hungarian church worried that Mr. Orban would exploit the pope’s visit for electoral gain. His government, they argue, has already essentially bought the independence, and the silence, of the church by showering it with many millions of dollars in subsidies.