Latest edition World Congress of Families (WCF, its acronym in English) has monopolized the media focus for hosting an aristocrat and one of the first interventions. influential After the media break between Tamara Falco and her ex-partner, Inigo Onyewa, the issue that has been widely covered in the press and monopolizes the daily conversation on social networks.
His religious reflections from Mexico City – which hosted this year’s meeting of the international ultra-Catholic movement – gave the conservative event heavy media coverage. Along with Falco’s comments about his intentions to “get to heaven”, his commitment to religious life after his first visit to Medjugorje – a small town in Bosnia that has been a pilgrimage center since the 1980s due to Marian apparitions – and forgiveness. Management after betrayal; This ultra-conservative summit also welcomed anti-abortion messages, defending marriage between men and women only, opposing atheism and sex education in the classroom.
For Monica Cornejo, a professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Falco’s presence is a “strategic folly” by the event’s organizers. “It is a means of deactivating the internal aggressiveness that exists in the positions of these people who oppose the freedoms of women and the LGBT community,” he adds.
Marchionne Grignon made his debut as a speaker at this type of international event. The World Congress of Families has become an excellent meeting place for ultra-Catholic organizations and far-right leaders such as Matteo Salvini, Georgia Meloni or Victor Orbán.
An anthropologist who specializes in the intersection between the extreme right and gender, Nuria Alabao, believes that Grignon’s Marchionne “knows perfectly” what is the context of the event that “he is attending”. According to this expert, Falco knows that with his presence he is giving publicity to a conference in which he is committed to “suspend the rights of LGTBI people, or even actively seek to criminalize them, as has happened in some countries, and also women.”
As for Falco’s presence, Cornejo argues that it brings “a certain image of glamour, high class, elegance and a certain flavor of social success that can mean something to a certain profile of people,” adds the professor at Complutense University. Likewise, he points out that the values associated with Grignon’s Marchionne serve to de-activate the “image” associated with the extreme right.
This strategy is not new, but it was more widespread and effective in Mexico. In 2019, when the World Congress of Families was held in Verona (Italy), there was already an obligation to have aristocratic personalities. in case, Louis Alphonso of BourbonGrandson of Francisco Franco and Alfonso XIII, participated as “VIP Speaker”.
Falco’s statements were not without controversy in Congress. She was asked about her emotional and sentimental state after the video broadcast of her ex-fiancé kissing another woman at a festival. man on fire noted: “I was excited because it was God’s project, but everything changed radically when the pictures of my boyfriend’s betrayal appeared.” “We live in a very difficult time for humanity now, there are so many different types of sexuality. So many different places where you can do evil. I think in other generations it wasn’t so obvious,” he said.
Some groups like Human Rights Campaign, warned that this congress – which brings together dozens of organizations – is one of the “most influential” in the “export of hate”. In an interview with elDiario.es in 2019, David Paternot, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), explained that this summit helps the participating organizations to “set the agenda”. “It is a meeting place that serves to strengthen alliances and improve discursive strategies. They are constantly modernizing the discourse,” says Cornejo.
Away from the media coverage, there was the presentation of another Spanish participant, the president of HazteOir, Ignacio Arsuaga, a figure far more relevant than Falco in the mechanisms of the international ultra-Catholic movement. A bus promoter who displayed the transphobic message “Boys have penises, girls have vulva” in Madrid claimed this Friday from Mexico City that there is now a “religious” and “spiritual war” going on in the West, an “army of progressive-secularists” and another “army” – to which Arsuaga belongs – Consists of a “very diverse coalition” that includes “conservatives,” “traditionalists,” “pro-lifers,” and “pro-family.”
“Progressive-secularists want to impose free abortion, sexualization of children, gender ideology in schools, castration and mutilation of children suffering from gender dysphoria; Those who want to reduce the world’s population, especially in third world countries, and ban any public expression of faith,” Arsuaga said from the stage.
In a far more political tone than Marchionne’s Grignon, the leader of HazteOir claimed that both an “awakened ideology” and a “progressive-secularist” had become a “religion” and “the battles of many years had been won. before becoming hegemonic in the university, media and politics”.
In his dialogue, Arsuaga pointed to the recent success of the European far-right following “the condemnation of the totalitarianism of the New Left.” “Georgia Maloney is going to become Prime Minister with an election platform with a clear and bold message against these hegemonic dogmas,” he said.
Regarding the statements of the rest of the attendees. Alabao warns that, although “it’s funny that Tamara Falco is leaving influential Religion’, the organizations promoting this Congress form a ‘strong lobby An organization that promotes the ideas of religious conservatism is quite dangerous for people’s lives and rights.”
Source: El Diario
