(LifeSiteNews) — The president of a Catholic pro-family organization blasted the European Union for being hostile to the family.
Commenting on the rejection of a grant request by the European Commission for the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE), President Vincenzo Bassi said that “when you propose the family as an irreplaceable subject to the European institutions, they do everything to exclude you.”
Bassi told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, “They let us know that FAFCE’s approach is contrary to the principles of equality of the European Union.”
“Now, our approach is nothing more than to indicate to European society the family as an example of a solution not only for social but also economic problems. So, according to them, the family experience is contrary to the principles of equality because it does not respect gender equality,” he continued.
He said that the EU does not tolerate that “we do not renounce the complementarity between man and woman, the maternal and paternal roles, and we consider the family as a socioeconomic unit in which the necessary collaboration between man and woman is crucial.”
FAFCE is an umbrella organization recognized by the Council of Europe as a non-governmental organization of participatory status. However, in contrast to many leftist NGOs, it has had its grant requests refused and is treated with hostility by the institutions of the EU.
The EU’s opposition towards the traditional family was evidenced when, in 2023, the European Commission launched an initiative that seeks to oblige member states to recognize the “parenthood” of homosexuals. This would also implicitly mean accepting the practice of surrogacy, FAFCE warned.
At the time, Bassi, said that “the introduction of a new legal category, ‘parenthood’, which goes beyond the current terminology of ‘filiation’, does have an impact on family domestic law,” even though the E.U. Commission claims that the initiative will not affect the marriage laws of E.U. member states, since family law falls under the exclusive competence of the individual nations.
“Beyond the declared intention of not interfering with Member States’ family law, this scenario would put the Commission’s proposal in contradiction with Art. 9 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, stating that ‘The right to marry and the right to found a family shall be guaranteed in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of these rights,’” Bassi concluded.
FAFCE expressed its grave concern regarding “the de facto recognition of the practice of surrogacy in the initiative.”
“Not only does the practice of surrogacy violate the fundamental rights and bodily integrity of women used as surrogate mothers, but also the rights of the child, who can in this way become a victim of human trafficking,” FAFCE stated in its press release. “While the European Commission’s proposal presents the child’s best interest as a pillar of its proposal, the inclusion of surrogacy as one of the areas addressed is against these very best interests.”