In September 2021, the Holy Father paid a visit to central Europe. He spent three days in Slovakia and a mere seven hours in Hungary, giving rise to understandable speculation that he was delivering a snub to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The rebuff – if it was a rebuff – was almost certainly due to the sharp difference of opinion on political matters between the man from the Vatican and the man from the Carmelite Monastery of Buda (the official residence of the Hungarian PM). An especially clear dividing line between the two is their approach to mass migration. Mr Orbán was one of the leading critics of the German-led open borders approach to the 2015 migrant crisis, which saw millions being resettled within the EU after making their way northwards from Greece and Italy. Pope Francis, by contrast, has repeatedly called for European countries to respond more generously to newcomers from south and east of the Mediterranean.
