Father Gergő Bese also maintained long-term sexual relationships with other men
If you value articles like this, sign up for our daily email newsletter and support us with a donation.
The Vatican has ordered the suspension of a high-profile priest close to Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán after the celebrity cleric was filmed on video participating in homosexual orgies.
According to the Hungarian news outlet Válasz Online, which outed Fr. Gergő Péter Bese, the apostolic nunciature noted that they had forwarded the "serious accusations" against the priest to Abp. Balázs Bábel of the archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét.
The news of the priest's outing and suspension went viral in Hungary's mainstream media, with the archdiocesan office confirming that the archbishop "has suspended Gergő Péter from his priestly service with effect from September 6, 2024."
Válasz Online revealed that the priest was filmed in several gay videos that also ended up on pornographic sites. Bese had met with Bábel months ago, informing the archbishop that there might be compromising recordings of him filmed while he was in a daze, the media said.
The Hungarian media agency RTL Híradó confirmed that they had obtained copies of the videos, and said that the recordings could have been made by the priest himself.
TIKTOK APOLOGY
In a video released on his TikTok channel Sunday, Fr. Gergő Bese, who wore a simple T-shirt, said that he would like to apologize to everyone who was hurt by the events of the past few days, and those whom he may have offended.
"I have sinned against the church and my community. I broke my priestly vow, I committed a sin. I apologize to everyone I hurt, whom I disappointed," Bese lamented. Media reports confirmed that the priest had also engaged in long-term sexual relations with other men.
"For 11 years, as Fr. Gergő, I brought everyone closer to God and to the love of the Blessed Virgin Mary," he said. "Now, as Gergő, I will try to do the same, because I believe that everything that happened is not a coincidence, it is not the work of chance, that God has a purpose for this too."
Válasz Online said they had contacted the Vatican's Apostolic Nuncio, Abp. Michael Wallace Banach, because Bese's case was being talked about in government circles.
At least four politicians from Orbán's Fidesz-KDNP coalition were discussing the existence of a file, which included video recordings and phone messages, and was intended to prove that the priest participated in gay orgies, the media disclosed.
The media agency also wrote to Fr. Bese by email and text message stating that they were not seeking to expose him, and asked him if the videos were genuine and if he had indeed engaged with other men in homosexual relations after his ordination to the priesthood.
Válasz Online said they were compelled to break the story after the priest refused to respond to the allegations.
CELEBRITY PRIEST AND HYPOCRITE?
On the Feast of the Epiphany in 2022, Bese was invited to bless prime minister Orbán's office which is housed in a former Carmelite monastery. Bese also performed the ceremony of blessing the chalk and marking the doorjambs of other government offices in the complex.
Meanwhile, pictures featuring Bese were swiftly deleted from Orbán's Facebook page. The priest also shut down his own Facebook account.
Ferenc Gyurcsány, entrepreneur and politician who served as prime minister of Hungary from 2004 to 2009, blasted the priest's hypocrisy in condemning homosexuality while living a double life.
"I don't know why any community, including the Christian community of believers in God, should be entrusted to people whose whole life is a lie," remarked Gyurcsány, who continues to serve as a member of the National Assembly of Hungary.
In August, Bese lambasted the meltdown of sexual morals in the Western world in an interview after the Paris Olympics:
"The first step on the slope of moral decline is the legalization of abortion, the introduction of extremely relaxed euthanasia regulations, and the equalisation of gay marriage with heterosexual marriage. Through the acceptance of gay marriage, the moral decline becomes almost irreversible, at the bottom of which a society will be destroyed."
Slamming the presence of drag queens at the opening ceremony of the Olympics for their "scandalous clothing and provocative behavior" the priest excoriated the "fact that they once again found joy in mocking Christianity" by "molding the image of the Last Supper into their own image and likeness."
"The only question is whether the system will collapse before we Hungarians become part of this horror, or whether the pressure and the conquest of liberal ideas will be so strong that we ourselves will become slaves to the spread of the culture of death," Bese warned.
The parish priest from Dunavecs also changed his Facebook cover photo to showcase Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper as a sign of protest.
CONDEMNING FELLOW HOMOSEXUAL PRIEST
In 2023, Bese denounced Fr. András Hodász, a Hungarian priest who came out as homosexual after an attempt at reparative therapy failed. Hodász said he was sexually abused by another priest in a Catholic community in Buda.
"This is where it all starts to get ridiculous and outrageous at the same time," Bese hit back. "Several years of theological studies, time spent in a seminary, regular meetings with a spiritual director and the time spent in ministry as a priest were not enough for him to seek a cure for the injuries he suffered?"
A strong advocate of priestly celibacy, Bese told the Without Taboos podcast in a 2020 interview that priests can remain celibate in about the same proportion as married couples can remain faithful.
The priest dismissed the suggestion that celibacy is contrary to the "biological nature of man" and argued that people thought living a celibate life as a priest is impossible because "you encounter overheated sexuality everywhere: you can't watch a movie without five sex scenes, you can't watch a cartoon without sexual references."
Bese elaborated:
"If I were a bishop, I would ask an 18-year-old seminary applicant if he had ever been in love. Have you ever held a girl's hand? Have you ever given him flowers or taken a romantic walk with him? Because if he missed these, I would advise him to go out into the world for a few more years: if after three years he still feels that God is calling him to be a priest, then he has a real vocation."
"In prayer, I can thank God that He thought of me and called me to this field, that He 'made me see' that I am capable of this. This is a huge trust from God! You can’t become a priest just by clicking a button without a vocation. To whom God invites, He also gives strength," Bese emphasized in the interview.
POLAND'S CLERGY HOMOSEXUAL ORGY
In 2023, Polish priest Fr. Tomasz Zmarzły, editor of the Catholic weekly Niedziela Sosnowiecka, was caught red-handed participating in a homosexual orgy after a male prostitute hired by the priest had a heart attack from a Viagra overdose at the party.
Police and ambulance services forced an entry into the sex party organized by Fr. Zmarzły, after the priest refused to let them in.
Zmarzły, who also served as a priest at the basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels in the town of Dąbrowa Górnicza, had invited two other priests and a sex worker for the "bunga bunga" party at his apartment on the night of Aug. 30-31.
In comments to Polish media, former Catholic priest Wojciech Grzesiak said that the rule of celibacy "provided a good shelter for priests of a lavender orientation."
Grzesiak said that he had never violated his promise of celibacy, but "the biggest hate on the part of my priest colleagues, when I got married, was from the homosexual priests."
"And they are shouting the loudest for the retaining the discipline of clerical celibacy," he added.
Editor's note: Click here to learn about "Psychomoralitcs: The Soul-Deep Alternative to the Failed Mental Health Professions."
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.
Commentaires