In his interview with Carlos Herrera on the COPE radio station, Pope Francis referred to his forthcoming visit to Budapest, Hungary, and Slovakia, scheduled for September 12-15, and about following trips to Cyprus, Greece, and Malta, as well as the possibility of going to Spain, specifically, to Santiago de Compostela.
The Successor of Peter confirmed as well that, in principle, he will go to the COP26 Summit in Glasgow.
Option for “Small Countries”
Carlos Herrera encouraged the Holy Father to go to the Spanish city of Seville during Holy Week and, although His Holiness said he was “very” curious to see it, “my option up to now, in regard to trips to Europe, has been small countries. Albania was the first he visited, and then all the countries were small. Scheduled now is Slovakia, then Cyprus, Greece, and Malta. I wanted to take that option: <to go> first to the smaller countries.
In this line, he added, “ I went to Strasbourg but not to France. I went to Strasbourg for the European Union. And, if I go to Santiago, I’ll go to Santiago but not Spain; I hope this is clear. Then he pointed out “I promised the President of the Xunta of Galicia that I would think about the matter, that is, I didn’t remove him from an eventual agenda, confirming that that’s “yet to be decided.”
Not Go with a Libretto
In regard to the trip to Hungary, the Holy Father stressed that, although there are expectations on his possible meeting with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor Orban, “I don’t know if I’m going to meet with him. I know that authorities will come to greet me. I’m not going to the center of Budapest but to the place of the [Eucharistic] Congress, and there is a Hall where I will meet with the Bishops and receive the Authorities that come there.”
To the question about what he would like to say to the Prime Minister if they met, the Pope answered that “one of the things I hold is not to go with a libretto: when I am in front of a person, I look at him in the eyes and let things come out. It doesn’t even occur to me what I’m going to say in case I should be with him; they are a series of potentials that don’t help me. I like what is concrete; the potential tangles one, hurts one.”
Asked about the intensity of the program in Budapest and Slovakia, and if he will have to be more careful on this occasion after his recent colon operation, Pope Francis said laughing: “Perhaps on this first trip a bit more, because one must be fully recovered, no? However, in the end, it will be the same as the others, you’ll soon see it.”
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
