Rome (Italy). From 28 to 30 April 2023, Pope Francis will make his 41st International Visit to Hungary. As he recalled in the Regina Coeli on Sunday 23 April, on 12 September 2021 he had already been to Budapest for the final Eucharistic Celebration of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress:
“Next Friday I will travel for three days to Budapest, Hungary, to complete the trip I made in 2021 for the International Eucharistic Congress. It will be an opportunity to re-embrace a Church and a people so dear.”
In the awareness that it is a journey to the center of a Europe tormented by conflicts, “on which the icy winds of war continue to blow, while the movements of many people place urgent humanitarian questions on the agenda,” the Holy Father expressed to the Hungarian population his affection and desire to visit them “as a pilgrim, friend, and brother of all, and to meet, among others, your Authorities, the Bishops, priests, and consecrated persons, young people, university students, and the poor.” In concluding, he thanked for the effort in preparing for his coming.
‘Christ is our future’ is the motto of the journey, present in Hungarian in the logo, whose central element is the Budapest Chain Bridge, the oldest Hungarian bridge crossing the Danube. Symbol of the capital and of the country, originally built to connect the cities of Buda and Pest, recalls through this symbolic element, the importance of building bridges between people, reiterated several times by the Pope.
Yellow and white, the distinctive colors of the Holy See, meet two pylons of the bridge with the Hungarian national ones: red, white, and green. The logo is delimited by a circle that symbolizes the Eucharist and the world redeemed by Christ, while on the left side of the circle, a cross recalls the discourse given by Pope Francis on 12 September 2021 in Budapest, in which he hoped that the cross would become a bridge between the past and the future.
The program foresees upon his arrival on April 28 and after the official welcome, the meeting with President Katalin Novak and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at “Sándor” Palace and with the civil and political authorities, in the former Carmelite Monastery. In the evening, the meeting with the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Consecrated women and men, Seminarians, and Pastoral Operators Workers in the Co-Cathedral of Santo Stefano.
Saturday 29 April the visit to the Children of “Blessed László Batthyány-Strattmann” Institute will be private. The Pope will then meet with the poor and refugees, including Ukrainians. Hungary, in fact, is a land of transit for those fleeing the conflict, to then move to other countries. After the visit to the Greek-Catholic community, in the afternoon he will meet the young people at the large sports arena “Papp László Budapest Sportaréna”.
Sunday 30 April the Holy Mass will be celebrated in Parliament Square. In the afternoon, before the farewell ceremony, The Holy Father will meet with the university and cultural world at the Faculty of Computer Science and Bionic Sciences of the “Péter Pázmány” Catholic University.
As per his request during the Regina Coeli, the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians assures Pope Francis of prayer for this journey to the heart of Europe.
