Pope Francis blessing children in St. Elizabeth’s Church on the second day of his visit to Budapest on April 29, 2023         MTI photo by Zoltan Mathe

In the church, named after the Hungarian saint patron of the poor, the pope thanked the Church in Hungary for its generous and wide-ranging service to charity. “Thank you too, for having welcomed – not only with generosity but also with enthusiasm – so many refugees from Ukraine,” he said.
The pontiff afterwards heard testimonies of life including a Roma woman from Mariapocs, in north-eastern Hungary, a father and his family who fled the war in Ukraine and the Budapest-based Csak Egyet charitable foundation aiding homeless people.
The pontiff said that Saint Elizabeth, to whom the Hungarian people have great devotion and affection, “spoke the language of charity”.
He said that when it comes to aiding the poor, the sick and the homeless “it is not enough to provide bread to fill stomachs; we need to fill people’s hearts!” The pope said that “charity is much more than material and social assistance. It has to do with the whole person; it strives to put people back on their feet with the love of Jesus: a love that helps them to recover their beauty and their dignity”.