In the Battle for Next Pope, Cardinal Erdö Emerges as a Conservative Favorite

When more than a million refugees and economic migrants poured into Europe a decade ago, Pope Francis urged compassion and, in a display of empathy and support, washed the feet of 12 asylum seekers at an Italian reception center.

Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Hungarian archbishop considered a contender to succeed Francis, took a different approach: Citing legal obstacles, he ordered church doors in Hungary closed to migrants, saying that “we would become human smugglers if we took in refugees.”

He reversed his position after an audience with Francis, and he never embraced the inflammatory messaging on migrants of Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orban.

But the episode appalled liberals and pleased conservatives wary of the pope’s welcoming ways. And it helped establish Cardinal Erdo, the archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, as a standard-bearer for forces within the Roman Catholic Church that want to reverse what they see as Francis’ overemphasis on emotional gestures at the expense of rules and doctrine.

Multilingual and an authority on canon law, Cardinal Erdo has written extensively on arcane aspects of the church’s legal system and devoted much of his career to scholarship. Apart from a two-year stint as a parish priest after his ordination in 1975, he has had little direct experience dealing with the day-to-day problems of churchgoers.

That could work against him as the church faces the challenge of reversing a steady drift toward secularism across Europe.