When more than a million refugees and economic migrants flowed in Europe ten years ago, Pope Francis insisted on compassion and washed in a presentation of empathy and support the feet of 12 asylum seekers in an Italian reception center.
Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Hungarian Archbishop, considered a competition to succeed Francis, took a different approach: with reference to legal obstacles, he ordered church doors in Hungary and said that we would become human smugglers if we would take refugees. “
He turned his position after an audience with Francis, and he never embraced the inflammatory messages on migrants from the populist Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.
But the episode shocked liberals and satisfied conservatives for the hospitable ways of the Pope. And it helped Kardinal Erdo, the Archbishop of Esztergom Budapest, to be set up as a standard carrier for forces within the Roman Catholic Church who want to reverse what they want to reverse as an excessive emphasis of Francis’s emotional gestures at the expense of rules and doctrine.
Multilingual and an authority in the field of canon legislation, has extensively written Cardinal Erdo about mysterious aspects of the legal system of the church and dedicated much of his career to the stock exchange. Apart from a two -year -old Stint as a parish priest after his consecration in 1975, he has had little direct experience with the daily problems of churchgoers.
That could work against him while the church faces the challenge of returning a steady drift to secularism throughout Europe.
“He is a lawyer, not a pastor,” said Istvan Geeny, the president of the Szemlelek Foundation, A Hungarian group that runs a Catholic news portal.
“Intellectually, he is a genius who at the same time can think about five different things,” he said, “but he has never been close to people. He is not emotionally emotional with them in a formal way.”
Cardinal Erdo has also developed tires with many of the cardinals who will choose the next pope. He is a well -known figure among Catholic leaders in the West, who forms a powerful, although divided, forming a voice in the conclave, who served as President of the Bishop Conferences of Europe from 2006 to 2016. He has also built bridges with Catholic leaders in Latin -America and Africa.
Just like Pope John Paul II of Poland, who became the first Pope from Eastern Europe in 1978, Cardinal Erdo, 72, entered the priesthood during the communist rule of his home country. It was a time of forced compromises that left a deep marking on his prospects.
Some conservatives support Cardinal Erdo in the conviction that he would bring the church back to the time of John Paul and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, a theologian of Deep Beurs and sometimes dogmatic views, and put an end to Francis’s progressive ideas.
But Hungarians who have worked with him say that he is less doctrinal than some fans believe. “He is a liberal conservative,” said Tibor Gorfol, the editor of Vigilia” The official magazine of the Hungarian Church.
“He’s not a real hard liner” and “never immediately criticized Pope Francis,” he said.
Cardinal Erdo supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which wanted to modernize the language used by the church in services, including.
But he has spoken out against allowing separate Catholics to receive communion and against priests who bless gay people. In an interview in 2019 with Robert Moynihan, the editor -in -chief of Inside the Vatican Magazine, Cardinal Erdo spoke about a need to ‘guard the flame’ of the traditional Christian belief in an increasingly secular world.
In Hungary, however, Cardinal Erdo had no success in slowing down an increasing secular tide.
Appointed Archbishop in 2002 by Johannes Paul, Cardinal Erdo was in charge during a decrease in the number of Hungarians who explain Roman Catholics. Between 2011 and 2022, according to the official Census results, the number fell by more than a million to 2.6 million. That shocked the Hungarian Church and Mr Orban, which Hungary trumpets like a bastion of Christian values.
Cardinal Erdo generally avoided to intervene in the polarized politics of Hungary, but aroused indignation in 2023 by attending a picnic by senior figures in the ruling Fidesz party. He also relieved the Liberal-Minded Hungarian Catholics by not defending Francis against a campaign of abuse by Fidesz during the migration crisis of Europe.
Peter Marki-Zay, a ecclesiastical Catholic mayor who led a failed opposition campaign against Mr Orban in an election of 2022, described Kardinal Erdo as a “typical communist era bishop in Hungary” who “does not take a position”.
Hungarian Catholics who have worked with him say that silence reflected his cautious personality and a desire to prevent a government from being presented with financing in the church.
Cardinal Erdo initially remained silent in response to accusations of sexual abuse against a Catholic priest made by a man who said in 2003 that he had been molested as a child. Cardinal Erdo later suspended the priest.
“Silence is unfortunately the most important strategy of the Hungarian Catholic Church” under Cardinal Erdo, Mr. Gorfol, the editor.
A Kardinal Erdo spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Mate Halmos in Budapest has contributed reporting.