Star priest who consecrated Orbán's office and Megafon may have attended gay parties, Catholic Church investigating

According to information obtained by Válasz Online, a file according to which the parish priest of Dunavecse, Gergő Bese may have attended gay parties and had maintained long-term, intimate relationships with other men, has been seen in highest government circles. The Apostolic Nunciature admitted to the newspaper that it had been informed of the serious allegations against the priest and that the same had been forwarded to the Archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét, where the Archbishop in charge, Balázs Bábel is handling the case.

A few hours after the article was published, the office of the Archbishop of Kalocsa-Kecskemét issued a statement saying that Bábel

"has suspended Gergő Péter Bese from his priestly ministry, effective 6 September 2024".

"The Apostolic Nunciature has been informed of the serious accusations concerning the priest of the Archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét. In accordance with canon law, these accusations have been immediately forwarded to the Ordinary of the aforementioned priest, who, as the competent ecclesiastical authority, is conducting the investigation," the Secretariat of Michael Wallace Banach wrote.

As Válasz Online writes, in recent years, Gergő Bese has become a proponent of political Christianity and has participated in several major government-related events.

For example,

• he consecrated the former Carmelite monastery that now houses the Prime Minister's Office,
• as well as the offices of PestiSrácok.hu and Megafon,
• he spoke out against LGBTQ propaganda and former Catholic priest András Hodász
• his organizations supporting families have received over 100 million forints of state funding.

The paper writes that it has been informed by a total of four Fidesz-KDNP politicians about the existence of a file proving that Gergő Bese attended gay parties. The paper claims that the case is being described in government circles as "even more egregious than the Szájer story".

We tried to reach Gergő Bese several times by phone to request a comment on the information published in the press, but he declined to answer. Shortly after 12 noon on 6 September, Gergő Bese's official Facebook page became unavailable.

Two years ago, during the parliamentary elections, Gergő Bese campaigned against the opposition in the Zugliget Catholic church, where he specifically said who should lead the country. At the time, following a Sunday Mass at the Szent Család Parish, he said that the opposition parties would abolish religious education and lessons on ethics in schools, and claimed they would return all church-owned schools to the state and would take funding away from church institutions.

In that presentation Bese also pointed out that sexual propaganda was already here in Hungary, and that the organisations involved in sensitising young people were mainly targeting small schoolchildren, because they were still easily impressionable.

No longer available

The photos of Gergő Bese conducting a consecration ceremony at the Prime Minister's Office in the former Carmelite monastery are no longer available on Viktor Orbán's Facebook page. Since Bese consecrated the building several times, we searched for the gallery of both the 2022 and 2024 events, but they are both empty.

The photos have disappeared from Viktor Orbán's Facebook page, and the embedded images are not available in the articles written about the dedication at the time.

We contacted the Prime Minister's press chief Bertalan Havasi on Friday to find out whether the photos had indeed been deleted, and if so, for what reason.