Magyar in Rome: Can the Church Maintain Its Influence in Hungary After Orban?

Viktor Orban positioned Hungary as a bulwark of ‘Christian Identity’ in Europe. His successor hopes to implement liberal reforms without getting into a fight with Hungary’s churches. Peter Magyar meets Pope Leo XIV in Rome on Thursday against a backdrop of turbulence in how the Catholic Church in Hungary relates to political life in the post-Viktor Orban era. The private audience is scheduled for 10:00, after which the Hungarian prime minister will meet the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Post-1989, it’s become routine for new Hungarian prime ministers to request a papal audience early on. This particular encounter, however, comes at a sensitive time as Magyar’s Tisza party-led government prepares to reform the framework that embedded Hungary’s historic churches within the Fidesz party’s power structure. Fidesz’s blurring of the lines between party, state and church during its 16 years in power helped mobilise the party’s domestic voter base and added plausibility to its international messaging about preserving “Christian values”. In 2019 Orban even tried, briefly, to rebrand his “illiberal democracy” project under the title “Christian Liberty”. A 2024 report by economics outlet G7 estimated annual expenditure on churches at 1.4% of GDP, and 7.5% of the state budget, on the latest figures then available. Under Fidesz, churches became major providers of (publicly funded) social, health and educational services. The government enabled building or renewal of over 3,000 places of worship in Hungary and neighbouring countries. And in 2018, the constitution was amended to mandate that protection of Hungary’s Christian culture “shall be an obligation of every organ of the State”. Faith groups critical of Fidesz’s democratic backsliding and anti-migration rhetoric, like the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship, however, found themselves subject to extensive harassment. Curiously, many top Fidesz politicians, including Orban himself, came disproportionately from Hungary’s minority Calvinist tradition. That confessional imbalance was mitigated after Fidesz struck an electoral pact with the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) in 2006. KDNP’s leader, former deputy prime minister Zsolt Semjen, has described his party as “the political arm of the Catholic Church in Hungary”. In the run-up to this year’s general election, many priests and some bishops campaigned openly for Fidesz-KDNP, despite the Catholic Church’s official neutrality. Catholic clergy could be found organising “Digital Civic Circles” (informal Fidesz supporter groups) and parroting party messaging in their sermons and other communications. Bishop Laszlo Kiss Rigo of Szeged-Csanad blessed the opening of the Budapest version of the US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March, which showcased international alt-right support for Orban’s re-election. According to recent reporting by 24.hu, ahead of the April general election some dioceses even benefitted from strategically timed discretionary government grants. These transfers, enacted via secret decrees made under emergency powers, occurred amid a slew of hidden payments totalling 1.4 billion euros to civic groups and businesses close to the ruling parties. Cardinal Peter Erdo (R), Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, receives Hungarian PM Peter Magyar (L) at home in the Primatial Palace, Budapest on June 16. Photo: Esztergom-Budapest Archdiocese/Krisztian Gyarmati Post-election positioning Zoltan Laky, a journalist covering religious affairs for Valasz Online, says the post-election period “has been one of cautious, and sometimes uneasy, adjustment” for both Tisza and the Catholic hierarchy. The latter, Laky tells BIRN, were encouraged by senior Fidesz-KDNP politicians to position the church as a strategic hold-out against the new order “in the expectation that Fidesz would soon return to power”, predicting Tisza’s collapse this autumn. With Fidesz losing its grip on state broadcasting and its private media empire visibly collapsing, bishops have reportedly experienced pressure from Fidesz-KDNP politicians to employ former propagandists in church outlets, and to centralise Catholic media content production. Some Fidesz-KDNP politicians want the Catholic Church to mirror the media umbrella structure (MTVA) they formerly used to control public broadcasting. Church authorities, responding to Valasz, said only that “there are currently numerous options on the agenda regarding the renewal of Church communications.” The Catholic hierarchy effectively boycotted parliament’s opening on May 9, in contrast to their strong turnout following past Fidesz election victories. The Bishops’ Conference was represented by only one member: Greek-Catholic Metropolitan Fulop Kocsis. And he left early, citing a pastoral commitment. Some observers worried that a sermon delivered by the president of the Bishops’ Conference, Janos Szekely, bishop of Szombathely, on May 23 at the annual Pentecost pilgrimage mass at the Transylvanian shrine of Csiksomlyo in Sumuleu Ciuc, Romania, uncomfortably replicated Fidesz’s post-election messaging. Speaking to a crowd of 330,000, Szekely proclaimed “the country of love cannot be built on hatred, and the rule of law cannot be built by violating the law.” The term “country of love” is an ironic trope of Fidesz-aligned media, used as a shorthand for Tisza’s political project. Latterly, however, a different approach has emerged, perhaps reflecting the influence of Hungary’s primate, Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest. Criticised in some quarters for silence about civil rights abuses under Fidesz, Erdo is also widely viewed as a pragmatist. The cardinal’s public appearances have lately been limited by illness, but he received Prime Minister Magyar privately in June and publicised pictures of their meeting soon after. In August, Catholic bishops were prominent in their attendance at the inauguration of Hungary’s new president, Andras Baka, signalling some distancing from Fidesz-KDNP, which rejects Baka’s election as “illegitimate”. According to Laky, “the hierarchy now seems to recognise that it cannot become the unofficial opposition – if for no other reason than its heavy reliance on public funding.” Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from the window of his office overlooking St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, 20 September 2026. EPA/ANGELO CARCONI Papal meeting aims Magyar himself doesn’t seem too keen on confronting the Catholic Church. That’s perhaps unsurprising given his own Catholic background. “He graduated from the Piarist grammar school in Budapest, and his family has long been well-known in church circles,” religious affairs commentator Janos Reichert tells BIRN. On the campaign trail Magyar was, on one occasion, photographed with a rosary around his wrist. He uses John Paul II’s dictum “Do Not Be Afraid” as his strap line on social media. And he’s been careful to incorporate visits to major Hungarian Catholic sites like the Archabbey of Panonnhalma and the Marian shrine at Mariapolcs into his public persona. Both Magyar and his ministers have avoided directing harsh rhetoric toward the churches. Indeed, the government’s recent invitation to them to contribute formally to a public consultation on potential reform of Hungary’s abortion law sparked strong criticism from some human rights NGOs. According to Amnesty International Hungary, “It sends a very bad message” when “church leaders… sit at the same table during the same professional consultation as doctors and professional organisations representing women.” Nonetheless, Tisza faces making some decisions that could entail difficult adjustments for the churches. A new legal framework for church-state relations is currently being prepared. Details are unknown yet, but the poor condition of Hungary’s public finances, and perceptions that discretionary grants have been traded for political loyalty from the churches, make an overall cut in state support seem likely. Separately, the public funding of schools operated by churches in Hungary is also a sensitive area. The number of church schools (of all denominations) doubled under Fidesz and pupils are resourced at a ratio of 3:1 per capita compared with peers in secular institutions. Those schools have long faced criticism for enabling Roma segregation because of the very low admission rates for Roma pupils. The new education minister, Judit Lannert, has made clear her ambition to tackle both issues, stating in an interview in June her intention to remove the “unfair [funding] disparity between state and church institutions”. Lannert also said that church schools can “remain in operation if they admit Roma children alongside non-Roma children”. Hungary and the Vatican may well wish to consult on this, given that the operation and funding of Catholic schools isn’t simply a matter of domestic law but also of a 1997 treaty with the Holy See. In Laky’s view, however, while Magyar will want to reassure Pope Leo about Hungary’s reliability as a partner, another factor should also be remembered. “Magyar is very much a social-media politician,” he notes, before continuing “so every high-level meeting is a photo opportunity.” An audience with the Pope “is about as valuable as these get”, he adds.