In Hungary, Gergő Bese was one of those Catholic priests who serve morning, noon and night the propaganda of Viktor Orbán’s nationalist power, starting with his messages with homophobic overtones against “LGBT ideology”. At the end of July, the 41-year-old cleric, sometimes nicknamed the “Fidesz priest” for his proven closeness to the prime minister’s party (he had even blessed the latter’s 2022 posts), was still criticising in the government magazine. Mandina the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, which he described as “Pride 2.0” with his “outrageous outfits” and his “ provocative behavior ».
This media figure welcomed the harsh criticism directed by Viktor Orbán – as by many other far-right European politicians – at the famous sequence in which the singer Philippe Katerine appeared naked and painted blue, calling it a symbol of “Irrational behaviour of Western Europeans”. By making this image the incarnation “of a society that loses its moral compass,” Father Bese took the opportunity to warn the Hungarians that, in his eyes, “gay marriage” still banned in its country, is the “first step towards the irreversible destruction of society”.
Just a month later, on Friday 6 September, the same blond priest from a small town of four thousand inhabitants located 60 kilometres south of Budapest and with homophobic speeches was suspended from his archbishopric. “with immediate effect from his priestly service”The sudden decision came after embarrassing revelations by an independent news site. Valasz online, According to which compromising information against him had been circulating for months in power circles. and in particular “videos and sound recordings” Available in “gay porn sites” which would show Gergő Bese “indulge in homosexual parties”The RTL television channel, which had access to the videos, later even mentioned scenes of collective sex filmed by the priest himself, recognizable by the bracelets he usually wears.
Media asked to silence the scandal
Known for its closeness to Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Catholic Church reacted very quickly to the publication of the article. The day after this spectacular suspension, the priest acknowledged in a brief press release “having made a mistake” AND “he apologized to all those[il] “offended and disappointed”. “I was deceived, they took advantage of my naivety and I lost my common sense” he added without going into further detail about the circumstances of these videos.
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