Deputy PM: Migration, possible pope visit to Hungary in Vatican talks

A clear distinction must be made between economic migration and refugees fleeing for their lives, Zsolt Semjén, Hungary’s deputy PM, said on Monday in the Vatican after meeting Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of the Holy See. He also told public media that the possibility of a papal visit to Hungary and Cardinal József Mindszenty’s beatification were also discussed.

Semjén said he had spent more than 90 minutes with Parolin and discussed church schools as well as how the relationship between state and church is organised in Hungary.

The 2020 Eucharistic Congress to be held in Budapest and its preparations were also on the agenda of his talks.

The pope has been invited to Hungary by the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Hungarian government, he noted. The Eucharistic Congress would be a good time for a papal visit to Hungary, he added.

Semjén said the situation of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia was among the topics discussed.

He said he had also explained to the cardinal the reasons for the Hungarian government’s migration policies, saying the solution was not for people to leave their places of birth but to help them live a dignified life in their homeland.