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.
“He is a lawyer, not a pastor,” said Istvan Gegeny, the president of the Szemlelek Foundation, a Hungarian group that runs a Catholic news portal.
“Intellectually, he is a genius who can think about five different things at the same time,” he said, “but he has never been close to people. He relates to them in a formal way, not emotionally.”
Cardinal Erdo has also developed ties to many of the cardinals who will choose the next pope. He is a familiar figure among Catholic leaders in the West, who constitute a powerful, though divided, voting bloc in the conclave, having served from 2006 to 2016 as president of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe. He has also built bridges with Catholic leaders in Latin America and Africa.
Like Pope John Paul II of Poland, who became the first pontiff from Eastern Europe in 1978, Cardinal Erdo, 72, entered the priesthood during communist rule of his home country. It was a time of forced compromises that left a deep mark on his outlook.
Some conservatives support Cardinal Erdo in the belief he would return the church to the time of John Paul and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, a theologian of deep scholarship and sometime dogmatic views, and put an end to Francis’ progressive ideas.
But Hungarians who have worked with him say he is less doctrinaire than some fans believe. “He is a liberal conservative,” said Tibor Gorfol, the editor of Vigilia, the Hungarian church’s official journal.
“He is not a real hard-liner” and “never directly criticized Pope Francis,” he said.
Cardinal Erdo supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which sought to modernize the language used by the church in services, among other changes.
But he has spoken out against allowing divorced Catholics to receive communion and against priests blessing gay couples. In a 2019 interview with Robert Moynihan, the editor in chief of Inside the Vatican magazine, Cardinal Erdo spoke of a need to “guard the flame” of traditional Christian faith in an increasingly secular world.
In Hungary, however, Cardinal Erdo has had no success in slowing a rising secular tide.
Appointed archbishop in 2002 by John Paul, Cardinal Erdo was in charge during a decline in the number of Hungarians who declare themselves Roman Catholics. Between 2011 and 2022, according to official census results, the number fell by more than a million to 2.6 million. That jolted the Hungarian church and Mr. Orban, who trumpets Hungary as a bastion of Christian values.
Cardinal Erdo has generally avoided intervening in Hungary’s polarized politics but stirred outrage in 2023 by attending a picnic held by senior figures in the governing Fidesz party. He also dismayed liberal-minded Hungarian Catholics by failing to defend Francis against a campaign of abuse by Fidesz during Europe’s migration crisis.
Peter Marki-Zay, a churchgoing Catholic mayor who led a failed opposition campaign against Mr. Orban in a 2022 election, described Cardinal Erdo as a “typical communist era bishop in Hungary” who “won’t take a stand on anything.”
Hungarian Catholics who have worked with him say that silence reflected his cautious personality and a desire to avoid antagonizing a government that has lavished funding on the church.
Cardinal Erdo also initially stayed quiet in response to allegations of sexual abuse against a Catholic priest made by a man who said in 2003 that he had been molested as a child. Cardinal Erdo later suspended the priest.
“Silence is unfortunately the main strategy of the Hungarian Catholic Church” under Cardinal Erdo, said Mr. Gorfol, the editor.
A spokesman for Cardinal Erdo did not respond to a request for comment.
Mate Halmos in Budapest contributed reporting.
