When greater than one million refugees and financial migrants poured into Europe a decade in the past, Pope Francis urged compassion and, in a show of empathy and assist, washed the toes of 12 asylum seekers at an Italian reception middle.
Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Hungarian archbishop thought-about a contender to succeed Francis, took a special strategy: Citing authorized obstacles, he ordered church doorways in Hungary closed to migrants, saying that “we’d grow to be human smugglers if we took in refugees.”
He reversed his place after an viewers with Francis, and he by no means embraced the inflammatory messaging on migrants of Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orban.
However the episode appalled liberals and happy conservatives cautious of the pope’s welcoming methods. And it helped set up Cardinal Erdo, the archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, as a standard-bearer for forces throughout the Roman Catholic Church that need to reverse what they see as Francis’ overemphasis on emotional gestures on the expense of guidelines and doctrine.
Multilingual and an authority on canon regulation, Cardinal Erdo has written extensively on arcane facets of the church’s authorized system and devoted a lot of his profession to scholarship. Other than a two-year stint as a parish priest after his ordination in 1975, he has had little direct expertise coping with the day-to-day issues of churchgoers.
That would work in opposition to him because the church faces the problem of reversing a gentle drift towards secularism throughout Europe.
“He’s a lawyer, not a pastor,” mentioned Istvan Gegeny, the president of the Szemlelek Foundation, a Hungarian group that runs a Catholic information portal.
“Intellectually, he’s a genius who can take into consideration 5 various things on the similar time,” he mentioned, “however he has by no means been near folks. He pertains to them in a proper means, not emotionally.”
Cardinal Erdo has additionally developed ties to lots of the cardinals who will select the subsequent pope. He’s a well-known determine amongst Catholic leaders within the West, who represent a strong, although divided, voting bloc within the conclave, having served from 2006 to 2016 as president of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe. He has additionally constructed bridges with Catholic leaders in Latin America and Africa.
Like Pope John Paul II of Poland, who turned the primary pontiff from Jap Europe in 1978, Cardinal Erdo, 72, entered the priesthood throughout communist rule of his residence nation. It was a time of compelled compromises that left a deep mark on his outlook.
Some conservatives assist Cardinal Erdo within the perception he would return the church to the time of John Paul and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, a theologian of deep scholarship and someday dogmatic views, and put an finish to Francis’ progressive concepts.
However Hungarians who’ve labored with him say he’s much less doctrinaire than some followers consider. “He’s a liberal conservative,” mentioned Tibor Gorfol, the editor of Vigilia, the Hungarian church’s official journal.
“He’s not an actual hard-liner” and “by no means instantly criticized Pope Francis,” he mentioned.
Cardinal Erdo supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council within the Sixties, which sought to modernize the language utilized by the church in providers, amongst different adjustments.
However he has spoken out in opposition to permitting divorced Catholics to obtain communion and in opposition to monks blessing homosexual {couples}. In a 2019 interview with Robert Moynihan, the editor in chief of Contained in the Vatican journal, Cardinal Erdo spoke of a have to “guard the flame” of conventional Christian religion in an more and more secular world.
In Hungary, nevertheless, Cardinal Erdo has had no success in slowing a rising secular tide.
Appointed archbishop in 2002 by John Paul, Cardinal Erdo was in cost throughout a decline within the variety of Hungarians who declare themselves Roman Catholics. Between 2011 and 2022, in accordance with official census outcomes, the quantity fell by greater than one million to 2.6 million. That jolted the Hungarian church and Mr. Orban, who trumpets Hungary as a bastion of Christian values.
Cardinal Erdo has usually averted intervening in Hungary’s polarized politics however stirred outrage in 2023 by attending a picnic held by senior figures within the governing Fidesz celebration. He additionally dismayed liberal-minded Hungarian Catholics by failing to defend Francis in opposition to a marketing campaign of abuse by Fidesz throughout Europe’s migration disaster.
Peter Marki-Zay, a churchgoing Catholic mayor who led a failed opposition marketing campaign in opposition to Mr. Orban in a 2022 election, described Cardinal Erdo as a “typical communist period bishop in Hungary” who “gained’t take a stand on something.”
Hungarian Catholics who’ve labored with him say that silence mirrored his cautious persona and a want to keep away from antagonizing a authorities that has lavished funding on the church.
Cardinal Erdo additionally initially stayed quiet in response to allegations of sexual abuse in opposition to a Catholic priest made by a person who mentioned in 2003 that he had been molested as a toddler. Cardinal Erdo later suspended the priest.
“Silence is sadly the primary technique of the Hungarian Catholic Church” below Cardinal Erdo, mentioned Mr. Gorfol, the editor.
A spokesman for Cardinal Erdo didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Mate Halmos in Budapest contributed reporting.
