International pro-life summit: Faith isn’t imposed but doesn’t hide either

Madrid, Spain, Dec 4, 2024 / 17:10 pm (CNA).

“Faith is not imposed, but it doesn’t hide” is how Jaime Mayor Oreja, the driving force behind the pro-life and pro-family summit held Dec. 1–2 in Spain’s Senate chamber, summed up the Christian position in face of forces in the world that seek to suppress outward expressions of faith. 

The theme for this year’s event was “For Freedom and the Culture of Life.”

Spain’s former minister of the interior and honorary president of the Political Network for Values ​​(PNfV) denounced “the sick obsession against the Christian foundations [of society], the contempt for science and biology, and the perverse manipulation of history” by those who tried to prevent the meeting from being held. Some 300 political and civic leaders from 45 countries on three continents participated in the event.

“They call us fundamentalists because we defend the foundations [of society]. But it’s the opposite, because we defend the regeneration” of the Western world, argued Mayor, who affirmed the group’s conviction of being “at the forefront of the debate of the future,” which will be characterized by being “between those who don’t believe in anything and those who want to believe and have permanent [points of] reference.”

“We don’t have to be afraid at all, even though the prevailing fashion is to be enraged,” Mayor said while proclaiming that “the defense of the right to life is the foundation, the pillar of all our positions within this cultural debate.”

“Let’s not lose our cool, as they are losing theirs with us,” the leader urged, before concluding that “by the solidity of our foundations, not by embracing extremism, let us know how to fulfill our obligation to the truth: to tell the truth, to defend the truth, and also sometimes to suffer for the truth.”

Lola Velarde, the executive director of the PNfV, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the participants in the summit had come to Spain to “defend the infinite dignity of the human person, from which a culture of life is born and of course the freedom to be able to defend these values.”

José Antonio Kast: ‘They hate us because they fear us’

During the summit’s introductory panel, the leader of the Republican Party of Chile, José Antonio Kast, also spoke.

In the words of Chilean politician Jaime Guzmán, who was murdered by left-wing groups, Kast gave an explanation for the attempts to cancel, persecute, and disqualify this summit: “They hate us because they fear us. And they fear us because they know we can’t be eliminated.”

“They know that we are brave and that we will never give up in the defense of our values,” he added.

Kast recalled that 10 years ago the first international summit of the PNfV was held, a time during which “this network has been strengthened and expanded with parliamentarians from dozens of countries, with opinion leaders, with researchers, advisers, and members of different governments.”

Kast announced that he was stepping down as president of the PNfV to mount another electoral bid for the presidency of Chile. “The time has come for me and my family to face a tremendous challenge, which is to run for president of our country, and we are doing it as a family,” he said.

Kast ran against Gabriel Boric in the 2021 Chilean presidential election and lost.

Before the summit began in the Senate, the apostolic nuncio in Spain, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, celebrated Mass at the Monastery of the Incarnation, located near the Senate chamber, where a small group of abortion advocates gathered.

Aúza emphasized that human dignity, as set forth in Dignitas Infinita, is the “fundamental principle and basis of our culture,” without whose recognition “it would not be possible to live in society.”

The prelate explained that this dignity exists “beyond all circumstances” and must be defended “in every cultural context” and, after thanking the participants in the summit for their work, encouraged them to “educate the conscience of many to recognize the centrality of human dignity.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.