National Catholic Register reports: The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Tuesday that Hungary’s 2021 LGBTQ law “breached EU founding values,” marking the first time the top EU court found an infringement of Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union. The law, passed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, contained amendments strengthening penalties against pedophilia, protecting minors, and limiting the promotion of LGBTQ and gender-related themes for minors in schools. The CJEU declared these provisions “a coordinated series of discriminatory measures” against non-cisgender and non-heterosexual persons, claiming they violated “human dignity, equality, and human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.” Orbán responded: “Our patriotic government protected Hungarian children from aggressive LGBTQ propaganda. Brusselian empire now strikes back.” The International Society of Natural Law Scholars raised concerns about whether courts are “narrowing the space for states to legislate on moral or child-protection grounds.” The ruling comes shortly after parliamentary elections in which Orbán’s party lost to Péter Magyar’s Tisza party.
The Supremacy of God’s Law Over Human Legislation
The ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union against Hungary’s child protection law represents a watershed moment in the ongoing conflict between the natural law, which is the eternal and unchangeable law of God written into the very nature of creation, and the positivist, relativistic legal framework that the post-Christian West has erected upon the ruins of Christendom. To understand the gravity of this confrontation, one must first grasp the Catholic doctrine of law as articulated by the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, and reaffirmed by every legitimate pontiff up to and including Pius XII.
St. Thomas teaches that “lex iniusta non est lex” — an unjust law is no law at all. Human law derives its binding force solely from its conformity to the eternal law of God, which is Divine Reason governing all creation. When a human law contradicts the natural law or the divine positive law, it is not merely imperfect or unwise — it is a corruption of law, an act of violence against the moral order, and binds no one in conscience. As the Holy Doctor writes in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 96, a. 4): “Human law has the nature of law in so far as it partakes of right reason; and it is clear that, in this respect, it is derived from the eternal law. But in so far as it deviates from right reason, it is called an unjust law, and has the nature, not of law, but of violence.”
The European Union’s legal order, built upon the Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and their successors, claims for itself a sovereignty that is, in Catholic terms, illegitimate. It is a sovereignty detached from God, detached from the natural law, and detached from any transcendent moral order. It is, in the language of Pius XI’s Quas Primas, the very essence of laicism — the systematic removal of Christ the King from the governance of human societies. The CJEU’s ruling does not merely disagree with Hungary’s legislative choices; it anathematizes the natural law itself by declaring that the protection of children from ideological manipulation constitutes “discrimination” and a breach of “founding values.”
The Inversion of Natural Law: When Protection Becomes “Discrimination”
Let us examine with precision what the Hungarian law actually contained. According to the cited article, the law “contained amendments strengthening penalties against pedophilia, protecting minors, as well as limitations on promoting LGBTQ and gender-related issues and themes for minors, mainly in schools.” These are measures that any Catholic state, faithful to the social kingship of Christ, would not merely permit but actively impose as a matter of justice.
The protection of children from sexual predation is not a matter of political opinion — it is a precept of the natural law, inscribed in the Fifth Commandment and elaborated by the Church’s constant teaching. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that the duty of parents and civil authorities to protect the young from corruption is a grave obligation of justice. Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei (1885), teaches that the state exists to promote the common good, which includes “the preservation of public morality” and “the protection of the innocent.” When a state enacts laws to shield children from exposure to sexual ideologies that contradict the natural law, it fulfills its most basic God-given duty.
Yet the CJEU has declared that such protection constitutes “a coordinated series of discriminatory measures” and “a particularly serious interference with several fundamental rights.” This is the language of moral inversion — the language of a legal order that has substituted the worship of the autonomous Self for the worship of God. In the Catholic understanding, the rights of persons are not autonomous, self-created claims against the community; they are participations in the eternal law, ordered toward the common good and ultimately toward the glory of God. As Pius XI teaches in Quas Primas: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.”
The EU’s “founding values” — as enumerated in Article 2 of the Treaty — are not the values of Christendom. They are the values of the Enlightenment, of the French Revolution, of the Masonic lodges that have shaped European liberalism since the eighteenth century. They are, as the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX makes clear in propositions 77-80, the errors of Modern Liberalism: the claim that “in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State” (prop. 77), and that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (prop. 80). The CJEU’s ruling is the logical and inevitable fruit of these condemned errors.
The “Rights” Revolution as Anti-Catholic Revolution
The language employed by the CJEU — “discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation,” “a preference for certain identities and sexual orientations to the detriment of others” — reveals the ideological foundation of the ruling. It is the language of gender ideology, which the Catholic Church has consistently condemned as a denial of the natural law and of the created order.
Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Casti Connubii (1930), teaches that the sexual complementarity of man and woman is not a social convention but a divine institution, rooted in the very act of creation: “God … wishing to use their [the married couple’s] cooperation for the increase of the human family, blessed them with these words: ‘Increase and multiply.'” The notion that “sexual orientation” constitutes a protected category equivalent to race or ethnicity is a modern invention with no basis in natural law, no basis in Scripture, and no basis in the Church’s two-thousand-year tradition.
The CJEU’s invocation of “human dignity” is particularly cynical. In Catholic theology, human dignity is derived from the imago Dei — the fact that man is created in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27). This dignity is not an autonomous possession; it is a gift from God, and it carries with it corresponding duties. As the Syllabus of Errors condemns in proposition 56: “Moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction, and it is not at all necessary that human laws should be made conformable to the laws of nature and receive their power of binding from God.” The EU’s concept of “human dignity” is precisely this condemned error — a dignity detached from God, detached from the natural law, and therefore a dignity that is, in reality, a license for moral anarchy.
The court’s lamentation of “the offensive and stigmatizing nature of the amending law” is a masterpiece of ideological manipulation. In the Catholic understanding, truth is not determined by subjective feelings of offense. The natural law is objective, universal, and immutable. When a law conforms to the natural law, it is just, regardless of whether it causes subjective distress to those who transgress that law. As St. Paul writes: “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16). The CJEU has effectively declared that the natural law is “offensive” and “stigmatizing” — which is to say, it has declared war on the moral order itself.
The Supranational Tyranny of the “Brusselian Empire”
Viktor Orbán’s characterization of the EU as a “Brusselian empire” is not mere rhetoric — it is a precise description of the political reality. The European Union is a supranational structure that claims authority over the sovereign nations of Europe, including authority over matters of education, culture, and family policy — matters that, in the Catholic understanding, fall within the competence of the family and the state, not of any international body.
Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei, teaches that “the Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each the highest in its own kind, each fixed within definite limits, and its own independent principle.” The European Union is neither ecclesiastical nor civil in the Catholic sense — it is a para-masonic structure that claims a sovereignty belonging to neither God nor the legitimate civil authority. Its claim to override the legislative choices of a sovereign nation on matters of morality and child protection is, in Catholic terms, an act of tyranny.
The International Society of Natural Law Scholars, cited in the article, correctly identifies the core issue: “the tension between national authority over education, culture, and family policy on the one hand and supranational enforcement of rights and nondiscrimination norms on the other.” But this is not merely a tension — it is a conflict between two incompatible visions of human society. The Catholic vision holds that the family is the fundamental unit of society, that parents have the primary right and duty to educate their children, and that the state exists to serve the common good by upholding the natural law. The EU vision holds that the individual is the fundamental unit of society, that “rights” are self-created claims against the community, and that supranational institutions have the authority to enforce these “rights” against the will of sovereign nations and their peoples.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemns this very error in proposition 39: “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.” The EU’s claim to authority over Hungary’s child protection law is precisely this condemned error — the claim that a human institution (the State, or in this case, the supranational state) is the origin and source of all rights, rather than God.
The Timing of the Ruling: Political Justice or Judicial Tyranny?
The article notes that “some have questioned the timing of the ruling, coming shortly after the parliamentary elections in Hungary,” in which Orbán’s party lost to Péter Magyar’s Tisza party. Hungarian analysts cited in the article suggest that Magyar, while presenting himself as a conservative, may bring “dangerous trends” leading to “worse legislation” in favor of “abortion, euthanasia, and LGBTQ issues.” Magyar himself stated after his election: “Everyone can live with whoever they love as long as they do not violate laws and are not harmful to others.”
This statement, while seemingly moderate, is in fact a capitulation to the very ideology that the Hungarian law sought to resist. The phrase “as long as they do not violate laws” is a tautology — it says nothing about the content of those laws. And the phrase “as long as they are not harmful to others” is a direct echo of John Stuart Mill’s “harm principle,” which Pius IX condemns in the Syllabus of Errors as the error of liberal individualism. In the Catholic understanding, the standard by which human conduct is judged is not whether it causes “harm” to others (a subjective and infinitely elastic standard), but whether it conforms to the natural law and the divine positive law.
The timing of the CJEU’s ruling — coming immediately after Orbán’s electoral defeat — raises serious questions about the independence of the court and the political nature of its jurisprudence. Whether or not one supports Orbán’s specific political program, the principle at stake is clear: a supranational court has claimed the authority to override the legislative choices of a sovereign nation on matters of fundamental morality. This is not the rule of law — it is the rule of ideology, enforced by judicial fiat.
The Silence of the “Catholic” Register
It is necessary to note the source of this article: the National Catholic Register. The article presents the CJEU’s ruling in a manner that is, at best, passive and uncritical. It reports the court’s decision, Orbán’s response, and the reactions of various commentators, but it offers no substantive Catholic analysis of the issues at stake. There is no mention of the natural law, no mention of the social kingship of Christ, no mention of the Church’s teaching on the duties of the state, and no mention of the condemned errors of liberalism and religious indifferentism that underpin the EU’s legal order.
This silence is not accidental — it is symptomatic of the systematic apostasy that has consumed the conciliar sect since 1958. The National Catholic Register, like virtually all post-conciliar “Catholic” media, operates within the framework of the “hermeneutic of continuity” — the modernist fiction that the Second Vatican Council represented no rupture with the Church’s prior teaching. In reality, the Council’s declaration Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom directly contradicts the teaching of Pius IX, Leo XIII, and every legitimate pontiff who affirmed the duty of the Catholic state to restrict the public exercise of false religions. The Register’s failure to apply Catholic teaching to the CJEU ruling is not a journalistic oversight — it is ideological conformity to the conciliar revolution.
The article’s use of the term “right-wing activists and political commentators” to describe those who criticized the ruling is itself revealing. In the post-conciliar lexicon, “right-wing” is a pejorative term used to marginalize anyone who upholds the Church’s traditional teaching on faith and morals. The Register does not describe these critics as “Catholics faithful to the natural law” or “defenders of the social kingship of Christ” — it describes them as “right-wing,” thereby reducing a matter of divine law to a matter of political opinion.
The Duty of Catholic Resistance
What, then, is the duty of the faithful Catholic in the face of this ruling? The answer is clear, even if it is unpopular in the post-conciliar climate of accommodation and surrender.
First, the faithful must recognize that the CJEU’s ruling is null and void in conscience. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, an unjust law is no law at all, and binds no one. The EU’s claim to authority over Hungary’s child protection law is illegitimate, and Catholics are not only permitted but obligated to resist it.
Second, the faithful must recognize that the European Union is not a neutral political entity — it is an ideological project built upon the errors condemned by the Church: liberalism, religious indifferentism, laicism, and the autonomy of human reason from divine revelation. As Pius IX teaches in the Syllabus of Errors, proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” This proposition is condemned — which is to say, the Church teaches that the Roman Pontiff cannot and ought not to reconcile himself with these errors. The EU is the institutional embodiment of these errors, and Catholics must resist it accordingly.
Third, the faithful must recognize that the protection of children from ideological manipulation is not “discrimination” — it is a precept of the natural law and a duty of justice. The CJEU’s ruling is not a defense of “human rights” — it is an assault on the natural law, on the family, and on the innocence of children. As Our Lord warns: “But whoso shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).
Fourth, the faithful must recognize that the post-conciliar “Catholic” media cannot be trusted to provide accurate analysis of events such as these. The National Catholic Register, like all conciliar media, operates within the framework of the modernist revolution and is incapable of applying the Church’s unchanging teaching to contemporary events. The faithful must turn instead to the sources of authentic Catholic doctrine: the Fathers of the Church, the ecumenical councils, the papal magisterium up to and including Pius XII, and the great doctors and theologians of the Church.
Conclusion: The Kingdom of Christ Cannot Be Overruled by Brussels
The CJEU’s ruling against Hungary’s child protection law is not an isolated event — it is a manifestation of the systematic war that the forces of Modernism, liberalism, and naturalism have waged against the Church and against the social kingship of Christ for over two centuries. It is the same war that Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors, that St. Pius X condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis and Lamentabili Sane Exitu, and that Pius XI condemned in Quas Primas.
The EU’s “founding values” are not the values of Christendom — they are the values of the Enlightenment, of the French Revolution, and of the Masonic lodges that have shaped the modern West. They are, in the language of the Syllabus of Errors, the errors of Modern Liberalism — errors that the Church has condemned with the full weight of her magisterial authority.
The faithful Catholic must not be deceived by the language of “human rights,” “dignity,” and “nondiscrimination.” These are the weapons of ideological warfare, designed to silence dissent and to impose a relativistic moral order upon nations that still retain some vestige of Christian civilization. The answer to the CJEU’s ruling is not compromise — it is resistance. As Pius XI teaches in Quas Primas: “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority.”
The Kingdom of Christ cannot be overruled by Brussels. The natural law cannot be amended by judicial fiat. And the innocence of children cannot be sacrificed on the altar of ideological conformity. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
Source:
European Union Court Rules Hungary’s LGBTQ Law ‘Breaches EU Founding Values’ (ncregister.com)
Date: 23.04.2026