The Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (HCB) held its regular summer meeting on 6 June, also attended by Apostolic Nuncio Michael Wallace Banach.
Prior to this, on the afternoon of 5 June, the members of the HCBC celebrated a Holy Mass to give thanks to God, led by Cardinal Péter Erdő, primate, archbishop of Esztergom and Budapest. Following the Holy Mass, Bishop András Veres, president of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, thanked the people involved in the organisation and implementation of the papal visit.
The members of the HCBC would like to express their special thanks to everyone who participated in any way in the organisation and implementation of the visit of the Pope. Special thanks go to the members of the press for their interest and reports on the apostolic visit.
At the meeting, members of the HCBC summarised the experiences of Pope Francis’ apostolic visit and listened to the report of Apostolic Nuncio Michael Wallace Banach on the evaluation of the papal visit.
The bishops gratefully concluded that the visit had been rich in graces for the Catholic Church and for the whole of Hungary. In order to keep the words of Pope Francis alive for a long time, the Hungarian translation of the Holy Father’s speeches delivered during the visit has been published in Hungarian by the HCBC. The bishops’ conference urges individual parishes, pastoral movements and groups to reflect on the thoughts of the Holy Father expressed during his visit on their community events.
The term of the secretary of the HCBC will expire this summer, so the bishops’ conference has decided to renew the mandate of Dr. Tamás Tóth as the general secretary of the HCBC for another five years. Father Tamás has held this office since 2018, before which he was the rector of the Hungarian Pontifical Institute in Rome. He is a church historian, privy professor and besides his duties as the secretary of the HCBC, he is a pastor at the Holy Family Parish of Kecskemét.
It was also decided that Dr. Gábor Németh will remain the bureau director of the Secretariat of the HCBC for the next five years.
The members of the HCBC reviewed the preparations for the World Youth Day in Lisbon. Two thirds of the more than one thousand young Hungarians participating in the event will represent Hungary in the Portuguese capital through the organization and support provided by the HCBC. Four Hungarian bishops are also expected to attend.
Caritas Hungary continues to support the Roman and Greek Catholic Caritas groups in Transcarpathia with several truckloads of goods worth millions of Hungarian forints every week. In order to provide long-term assistance, an Integration Centre was opened in Budapest last June to help Transcarpathian and Ukrainian refugees settling in Hungary with housing, job search, administration and children’s schooling. During the one year of providing assistance, the diocesan Charity Centres of Caritas Hungary’s national network have also become involved in caring for refugees.