By CHRISTOPHER MANION
Clearing away the fog and confusion fomented by the German dissidents and “Synodality,” Pope Francis last week sent a message to participants in the “WOOMB International Congress on The ‘Billings Revolution’ 70 years later.” His words are an inspiration as well as a reminder of the fundamental truths expressed by his Predecessor, Pope Paul VI, in Humanae Vitae.
The conference, he said, encourages “serious reflection” on “the need for education in the value of the human body, an integrated and integral vision of human sexuality, an ability to cherish the fruitfulness of love even when not fertile, the building up of a culture that welcomes life and ways to confront the problem of demographic collapse.”
“There is a need,” he continued, “always to keep in mind the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of the conjugal act (cf. Humanae Vitae, n. 12). The former expresses the desire of the spouses to be one, a single life; the latter expresses the shared desire to generate life, which endures even at times of infertility and in old age. When these two meanings are consciously affirmed, the generosity of love is born and strengthened in the hearts of the spouses, disposing them to welcome new life.”
“At the root of the current demographic crisis is, along with various social and cultural factors, an imbalance in the view of sexuality,” he told the conferees, and he reiterated that message during his visit to Hungary last week, where he condemned “the baneful path taken by those forms of ‘ideological colonization’ that would cancel differences, as in the case of the so-called gender theory, or that would place before the reality of life reductive concepts of freedom, for example by vaunting as progress a senseless ‘right to abortion,’ which is always a tragic defeat.”
“How much better it would be to build a Europe centered on the human person and on its peoples, with effective policies for natality and the family like those pursued attentively in this country,” he said.
Hungary Joins Pope Francis To Fight For The Family
With “this country,” Pope Francis was referring to Hungary, whose president, Katilin Novak, hosted his visit and welcomed his remarks, because she and Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, have blazed a trail with programs designed to reverse the country’s demographic decline by encouraging marriage and families – large families.
President Novak described some of those efforts in a recent appearance at Florida’s Ave Maria University. As Ave Maria senior Chiara Mosher reports, Novak “expressed pride that our king, St. Stephen, built the Hungarian State on solid ground and made our country a part of Christian Europe one thousand years ago.”
The preamble to Hungary’s constitution describes the country’s fundamental principles that respect life and family. “Every human being shall have the right to life and human dignity; the life of the foetus shall be protected from the moment of conception,” states Article II.
President Novak emphasized this point during her remarks. “Human life is invaluable, and it should be protected from the moment of conception,” she told the cheering crowd.
Hungary’s Constitution clearly defines both marriage and parents. Marriage is “the union of a man and a woman established by voluntary decision…and is the basis of the survival of the nation. Family ties shall be based on marriage and/or the relationship between parents and children.” (Article L.1)
In her former role as Hungary’s Minister Of Family Affairs and State Secretary Of Family And Youth Affairs, Novak became the architect of the most pro-family policy that any country in Europe has known in modern times. Today, six percent of Hungary’s GDP is spent on family support. Some examples of these pro-family policies include:
1) Major tax breaks: The more children a Hungarian couple have, the less income tax they have to pay. Mothers who have more than four children are given a lifelong exemption from personal income tax.
2) Forgiven student loans: If a Hungarian couple has three children, their combined student debt is forgiven.
3) Housing subsidies for newlyweds: young married couples are given subsidies to build or buy their own homes.
Hungary’s policies are not universally welcomed by the secular governments of the European Union and the Biden Administration. In 2019, France24 reported that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called on Hungarians to defend “Christian” nations against immigration, which he said led to the “virus of terrorism.”
Orban added: “Historic traditions in immigrant countries come to an end…in such countries Christian-Muslim worlds are created with continually shrinking Christian proportions.” Orban ruled out any move to tackle Europe’s declining birth numbers with higher immigration as “capitulation,” France24 added.
“We don’t just want numbers, we want Hungarian babies,” he said, spelling out the government’s pro-family incentives and Novak had championed in legislation.
Joe Biden disagrees. In one of his few campaign appearances in 2020, he told a town hall, “You see what’s happening from Belarus through Poland and Hungary and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world.” Biden said last year. “Our current president supports all the thugs in the world.”
For “Catholic Joe,” pro-life and pro-Christian leaders who survived decades of Communist tyranny are “thugs.”
In spite of Biden’s radical support of abortion until birth, in spite of his support of the sexual mutilation of children, our bishops were silent during that campaign. Even though they had voted in 2019 to make abortion their “preeminent issue,” they would not defend the most pro-life president in American history.
But Viktor Orban was not silent, In response to Biden’s diffident slur, he said that “somebody who does not speak our language has a very limited knowledge on Hungary, even in the recent several decades of our life, not understanding of obviously having an opinion like that,” he said in response to President Biden’s comment. “It’s a personal insult for all the Hungarians.”
A New Pastoral Calls
“Gender” By Its Proper Name
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City published last week a moving pastoral letter spelling out the profound errors of “Gender Ideology” and the steps that parents can take to protect their children from its dangers.
“Pope Francis has noted that ‘today children — children — are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex’,” he writes in “On the Unity of the Body and Soul: Accompanying Those Experiencing Gender Dysphoria.”
He continues to cite Pope Francis: “Why are they teaching this? Because the books are provided by the people and institutions that give you money. These forms of ideological colonization are also supported by influential countries. And this is terrible!”
“The movement is, simply put, an evil infecting our world in this time and place,” writes Archbishop Coakley, “and it must be rejected completely even as we love unconditionally those bound in its snares.”
In contrast with the “spirit of Vatican II” that conforms to the “spirit of the age” and not the Holy Spirit, Archbishop Coakley places his pastoral letter firmly on the teaching of the Catholic Church, as reiterated in the Second Vatican Council:
“Throughout human history,” he writes, “every generation has faced its own unique challenges with powerful forces rising to disfigure the human person and distort her relationship with God and neighbor. Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World put it this way: ‘Although he was made by God in a state of holiness, from the very onset of his history man abused his liberty, at the urging of the Evil One. Man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God. Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, but their senseless minds were darkened and they served the creature rather than the Creator’.”
Archbishop Coakley’s letter is truly required reading.
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