Pope Francis is visited Hungary where he was welcomed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. His Holiness expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Orban for welcoming large numbers of refugees from the war in Ukraine. Hungary is a leading provider of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

The Pope arrived in a small white Fiat, in a convoy of black limousines, to a spectacular parade by Hungarian Hussars on horseback outside the presidential palace in the castle district, overlooking the city. He walked cautiously, with a stick, after a knee injury last year, but his voice was strong.

“We seem to be witnessing the sorry sunset of that choral dream of peace, as the soloists of war now take over,” he told assembled dignitaries. “World peace cannot be ensured except by creative efforts, proportional to the dangers threatening it”, he quoted the Schuman Declaration of May 1950 which set out the founding principles of the forerunner to the European Union.