Opening Address: Katalin Novák

• Post by: TNF Editor
• March 31, 2019

Minister of State for Family and Youth Affairs, Hungary Hello to everybody! I’m very happy to be here in Verona today, in the beautiful city of love, in the city of Romeo and Juliet: the best place to organize this year’s World Congress of Families. I am happy to be here. I’m happy to have come here, even if it was not easy to reach this building today. I come from Budapest, from Hungary. I represent the government and the governing party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a leader who not only speaks about family values, but also acts in favor of families. I know how much tension the World Congress of Families has caused here in Italy. I see the newspapers, I see the media, I see that so many people were angry because of this conference. Don’t be angry! We are all very happy to be here. I see that the so-called “liberal” media cannot accept anyone who doesn’t think the same way they do. I am conservative, so I trust the other person in the conversation. I am conservative, so I think that everybody has the right to think whatever they want. I am conservative, so I think that we have the right to speak out for what we take to be important, what we take to be true. And I also give others the right to do so. So let’s be conservatives, and let’s respect others by letting them say whatever they want to say. We are living in the time of “fake news,” of lies. Let me tell you a story. Just today, on a Hungarian website, appeared a long article about my speech. The authors said that I said this, I said that, and that you didn’t like it. They claimed that what I said wasn’t even popular in this room! And I hadn’t even given my speech yet! That’s the world we are living in. Maybe they published this article some hours before they wanted to. It was a little bit too early, certainly, because I hadn’t even stepped on the stage! I hadn’t even entered the building yet! But we are fine. We are used to this. And we have to stay brave. If