The E.U. Is Coming for Catholics: The view from Poland and Hungary

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz

Poland and Hungary are in trouble with the European Union again. Ostensibly, this time it is a budgetary dispute that neither Warsaw nor Budapest is willing to sign off on. But, in essence, it is a clash of postmodernism on the one hand and traditionalism on the other. Brussels endeavors brutally to impose its social-engineering schemes on the Poles and the Hungarians, who view such ham-fisted behavior as a violation of their national sovereignties.

At the moment, we are witnessing a fight over two fundamental issues: immigration and sexuality. Brussels huffs and puffs about freedom of movement and human rights. Poland and Hungary simply must accept whatever quota of Third World migrants (mostly Muslims) the E.U. has set for the member states. Further, they must agree to all rules and regulations favoring LGBT causes, abortion, and so on—long overdue in the region. Or so Brussels says.

To force compliance, the Eurocrats call the reprobates in Central and Eastern Europe racists, homophobes, and misogynists. Brussels resents the Magyars and the Poles for controlling their own borders. The E.U. is livid that the constitutions of Poland and Hungary both define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The commissars of the European commission hate the fact that the Hungarian Parliament defunded “critical theories,” “gender studies,” and other such programs in the nation’s universities. Lastly, the lords of the European superstate fume at Poland’s legal protection of life, in particular the outlawing of abortion on demand.

But the Polish and the Hungarians are neither racist nor any kind of sex-phobic. They merely practice defense against the nefarious consequences of those fashionable ideologies embraced by the E.U.—ideologies that have done so much to ruin Western Europe. Thus, the Poles and the Hungarians see such strictures as disingenuous. For them, it is about maintaining sovereignty, including the cultural essence of their nations.

They themselves decide who may or may not come to settle within their borders. And they have been quite welcoming and accommodating of the alien needy. For instance, Poland is not only host to about a million Ukrainian war refugees and economic migrants, but it has agreed to welcome Syrian Christians on the Vistula.

Further, as far as Syrian war refugees, both the Hungarians and the Poles (via their governments and religious charitable institutions) have been doing yeoman’s work at the source, where it really matters: in the Middle East refugee camps. This way, the needs of the destitute are taken care of in situ. The unfortunates remain close to home, ready to return when the conflict is resolved.

That is the most efficient way to manage this kind of human tragedy, the point lost on Brussels and, particularly, Berlin. The masters of the E.U. would rather see waves of refugees resettled on the Continent and pay homage to the gods of multiculturalism… and, in due time, to bolster their tax intake, salvage labor shortages, and reverse their demographic collapse.

They also order the Hungarians and the Poles to fall in line as far as LGBT issues are concerned. Poland and Hungary must become as forward-thinking as the rest of the E.U., in particular its Western part. That means changing laws protecting traditional family and embracing everything from gay marriage through gay adoption to mandatory school indoctrination sessions about gender fluidity, transgenderism, and other achievements of so-called “sexual citizenship” that has become standard in the West.

Once such “norms” are rammed down the Hungarian and Polish throats, the road to other joys of what Saint John Paul II called “the culture of death” will be wide open. Euthanasia beckons. Who knows? Pedophilia may be in the cards as more and more progressives insist that we lower the age of consent. That is what Warsaw and Budapest fear and expect.

Then, as now, there will be no room for diversity under the diktat of Brussels and Berlin. Everyone must fall in line.

This is the prism through which one ought to see the latest spat. The Eurocrats have made the redistribution of Polish and Hungarian taxes contingent upon their agreement to unrestricted emigration and the Sexual Revolution. Both nations thus vetoed the E.U. budget. We’re talking about $2.2 trillion. There will be no tying of the budget to the Polish and Hungarian compliance with any social-engineering schemes.

The E.U. struck back by introducing an alternative way of disbursing its largesse through a “bridge fund” option. This would allow the E.U. executive (not popularly elected, of course) to exclude the dissenting countries from the distribution process. The latter includes a generous amount set aside for Covid relief. Thus, the masters in Brussels violate parliamentary procedures by bureaucratically subverting the democratic process and allocating the monies by fiat to nondissenting countries.

So far, Hungary and Poland have refused to budge. All parties involved are frantically looking for allies. The dissidents have not only hobnobbed with the Croats and the Slovenes, whose governments are rather conservative, but they have chatted up the Portuguese, who are ruled by the left.

The E.U. has also recalled its top representative from Poland. Two Belgian regions broke off direct relations with their Polish counterparts. Germany’s leading social-democratic politician, Martin Schulz, threatened to cut subsidies to Hungary if elected chancellor. The Dutch Parliament vowed to haul Poland before the Constitutional Tribunal for allegedly tormenting homosexual persons.

The barrage never ceases, lustfully assisted by the liberal media spewing disinformation.  The hammering will stop only when Hungary and Poland cave.

When Hungary and Poland joined the E.U. in 2004, they were attracted by the promise of a free market union of sovereign nation states. It has since become a superstate poised to use its power against freedom, family, tradition, and patriotism.

There was a reason for Brexit, wasn’t there?

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is Professor of History and holds the Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC.