The Hungarian President visited the Vatican, where he was received by Pope Leo XIV in a private audience at the Apostolic Palace on Saturday morning. The head of state also held talks with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, the Holy See Press Office announced.
On Saturday morning, Pope Leo XIV received President Tamás Sulyok in audience, who then met with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Mihăiță Blaj, Undersecretary of the Section for Relations with States and International Organizations of the Holy See.
During the cordial discussions in the Secretariat of State, the stability of bilateral relations and the contribution made by the Catholic Church to the life of Hungary in numerous social areas were acknowledged.
Taking into account issues of common interest, special attention was paid to the central role of the family and the protection of the most vulnerable Christian communities worldwide,
the statement said.
During the course of the talks, the participants exchanged views on the current international situation, particularly in conflict areas, and emphasized the need for an even stronger commitment to promoting peace.
President Sulyok reported on the meeting on his official social media page, emphasizing that peace is the most important value of our time and that, alongside Hungary, the Vatican remains the strongest advocate of peace in Europe. He recalled that this was his second meeting with Pope Leo XIV since his inauguration and announced that,
in consultation with the President of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, János Székely, he had invited the Holy Father to visit Hungary.
The head of state, who was accompanied to the Vatican by his wife Zsuzsanna Nagy, presented Leo with a gift from Hungary: a statue of the Madonna, that is a faithful replica of the 15th-century sculpture known as the Toporci Madonna, made of Herend porcelain and kept in the Hungarian National Gallery, press office of the Sándor Palace announced.
The following day, the Hungarian head of state laid a wreath at the memorial plaque of József Mindszenty in St. Stephen’s Basilica, known as the church of the Hungarians in Rome, and attended a mass celebrated by Archbishop Gergely Kovács of Gyulafehérvár.
In the church named after martyr St. Stephen, a plaque commemorates martyr Cardinal Archbishop József Mindszenty, for whom the basilica was the titular church designated by the Pope until 1975.
Tamás Sulyok laid a wreath at the memorial plaque.
The church, once belonging to the Hungarian Pauline Order, houses the tomb of János Lászai, a Roman Hungarian confessor who lived in the fifteenth century, on which the Latin inscription “Rome is the homeland of us all” can be read.
The Roman Hungarian community holds its national Mass in the basilica on the last Sunday of every month, that this time fell on the first Sunday of Lent.
Tamás Sulyok and his wife, Zsuzsanna Nagy, as well as the delegation accompanying the head of state, attended the Mass, that was celebrated by Gergely Kovács, Archbishop of Gyulafehérvár, who was appointed bishop six years ago.
András Törő, rector of the Pontifical Hungarian Institute (PMI) in Rome, gave a speech at the ceremony. In his homily, he emphasized that
Lent is not about how much we can give up or how much we can achieve, but rather a time of change in which we learn to count on God again in our lives.
The Hungarian-language Mass was attended by Hungarian priests serving in Rome, seminarians from the Hungarian-German college Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum, and members of the Hungarian community in the Italian capital.
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Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Dr. Sulyok Tamás
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