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Brussels NatCon conference will continue freely after court overturns police barricade

Published

1 year ago

7 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Michael Haynes

Condemnation of Mayor Kir’s crackdown on NatCon was wide-ranging, and not merely from the dignitaries speaking at it. The British prime minister’s deputy spokesman called the scenes “extremely disturbing.”

Thanks to a successful challenge from pro-freedom legal organization ADF International, a Belgian court has struck down an order from the local authorities which saw an “international incident” created after police blockaded the National Conservatism conference in Brussels, Belgium yesterday. 

In an early morning announcement April 17, ADF International announced that a Belgian court “has struck down state censorship,” thus allowing the National Conservatism (or NatCon) conference to proceed undeterred into its second day today.

Via a press statement, ADF International wrote: 

In the decision, considered a victory for free speech, the court decided that ‘Article 26 of the Constitution [of Belgium] grants everyone the right to assemble peacefully,’ and although the mayor has the authority to make police ordinances in case of ‘serious disturbance of the public peace or other unforeseen events,’ in this case there was no sufficient threat of violence to justify this. 

The Court reasoned that ‘it does not seem possible to infer from the contested decision that a peace-disrupting effect is attributed to the congress itself.’ Rather, as the decision notes, ‘the threat to public order seems to be derived purely from the reactions that its organization might provoke among opponents.’

READ: Socialist Belgian mayor orders police to shut down event featuring Cardinal Müller, Orbán, Farage

The Brussels NatCon conference currently taking place was catapulted to the fore of international headlines on Tuesday, when local police moved to shut the event down, under orders of the local mayor. 

As LifeSiteNews reported, the Socialist mayor of the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode municipality – Emir Kir – ordered the police to shut down the two-day conference to “guarantee public safety.”

Footage and images flooded social media around midday, showing lines of police barricading the conference venue, prohibiting anyone from entering. Those already inside were not allowed back in if they left. 

The conference is hardly a fringe event. High-profile guests and speakers include Vatican prelate Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orbán, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, former French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, former U.K. politician and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, and previous U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

The police clampdown was initiated as Braverman was arriving and Zemmour was refused entry by the police.

NatCon organizers also stated that the catering had been canceled, and participants only had limited access to water and food as the police were preventing the delivery of supplies. Those still effectively locked inside the conference venue by nightfall were able to partake of a gala dinner, and then left the building. 

Paul Coleman, ADF International’s executive director, shared an English translation of the police order on X yesterday afternoon. The mayor’s order cited the “ethically conservative” position espoused by speakers at NatCon, “e.g., hostility to legalized abortion, same-sex unions, etc.,” along with a “Eurosceptic” mindset among his reasons for deploying the police.

The conference, being held on premises operated by Claridge Events, had already been forced to find new venues on two occasions in the preceding days, as pressure was placed on them to cancel the conference due to its promotion of “conservative” talking points. 

The Claridge venue was the third home for the event. NatCon’s hastily found backup venue broke “its written contract” to host the event on Monday night, according to NatCon organizer Yoram Hazony, hours before the conference was scheduled to begin Tuesday morning. 

Welcoming the court ruling to allow NatCon to proceed unimpeded, Coleman stated:

While common sense and justice have prevailed, what happened yesterday is a dark mark on European democracy. No official should have the power to shut down free and peaceful assembly merely because he disagrees with what is being said. How can Brussels claim to be the heart of Europe if its officials only allow one side of the European conversation to be heard?

Coleman attested that Tuesday’s “kind of authoritarian censorship we have just witnessed belongs in the worst chapters of Europe’s history. Thankfully, the Court has acted swiftly to prevent the repression of our fundamental freedoms to both assembly and speech, thus protecting these essential characteristics of democracy for another day.”

Condemnation of Mayor Kir’s crackdown on NatCon was wide-ranging, and not merely from the dignitaries speaking at it. The British prime minister’s deputy spokesman called the scenes “extremely disturbing.”

“The Prime Minister is a strong supporter and advocate of free speech and believes it is fundamental to any democracy,” the spokesman added.

According to author and NatCon speaker Rod Dreher, Cardinal Müller went so far as to say the Belgian police action was “like Nazi Germany.” 

Belgium’s pro-EU Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also condemned the actions taken by local police, in a signal move made against the local mayor. Writing on X yesterday evening he stated that “[w]hat happened at the Claridge today is unacceptable. Municipal autonomy is a cornerstone of our democracy but can never overrule the Belgian constitution guaranteeing the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly since 1830. Banning political meetings is unconstitutional. Full stop.”

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International

JD Vance was one of the last people to meet Pope Francis

Published on April 21, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Matt Lamb

Vice President JD Vance was one of the last people to meet Pope Francis, as he saw him yesterday on Easter. Francis met with Vance, before he traveled to St. Peter’s Square to give a blessing to thousands gathered for Easter.

The pope died this morning at 7:35 this morning in Rome.

Vance, a Catholic convert, said his “heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him.”

“I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill,” Vance wrote on X. “But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful.”

“May God rest his soul,” Vance wrote.

Vance linked to a March 27, 2020 homily titled “Extraordinary Moment of Prayer.”

Pope Francis said:

Embracing His cross means finding the courage to embrace all the hardships of the present time, abandoning for a moment our eagerness for power and possessions in order to make room for the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring. It means finding the courage to create spaces where everyone can recognize that they are called, and to allow new forms of hospitality, fraternity and solidarity. By his cross we have been saved in order to embrace hope and let it strengthen and sustain all measures and all possible avenues for helping us protect ourselves and others. Embracing the Lord in order to embrace hope: that is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear and gives us hope.

Vance was in Italy this week, as he also met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He also attended a Good Friday liturgy at the Vatican, as reported by the Associated Press. However, it remained unclear if the vice president would meet with the Pope, although he had a scheduled meeting with Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

In February, Pope Francis appeared to directly address Vance’s citation of “ordo amoris” where the vice president argued that the country must first take care of its own citizens before refugees and illegal immigrants.

Earlier this year Pope Francis issued a blistering letter, appearing as a direct rebuff to both President Donald Trump’s policies to tackle illegal immigration and JD Vance’s comments about the “ordo amoris.”

Francis took direct aim at Vance about the “ordo amoris” – the Catholic teaching on a hierarchy or order of charity which starts with God, the family, and spreads eventually to the wider world – a principle defended and outlined by the Greek philosophers and Catholic theologians such as Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

Repeatedly referring to the “infinite dignity” of man, Francis appeared to suggest that, based on this dignity, all people should be loved to the same degree and in the same way, thus defending his principle that the same dignity should be the principle behind having widely permissive immigration policies.

As extensively reported by LifeSiteNews, the pope’s health has been in decline for several months now since he was first admitted to the hospital in February for bronchitis, which turned out to actually be double pneumonia. A full obituary by LifeSiteNews’ Senior Vatican Correspondent Michael Haynes can be read here.

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International

Pope Francis Dies on Day after Easter

Published on April 21, 2025

By

By John Leake

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was many “firsts” in papal history.

This morning in Rome, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo (office for announcing Pope’s death) declared from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived:

At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of His Church.

Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which made him the first pope from Latin America. He was also the first pope from the Jesuit order, which was banned in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV (and restored by Pope Pius VII in 1814).

Pope Francis was also the first to take the name of Francis of Assisi —the Italian mystic, poet and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. Saint Francis has long been celebrated for his humility, simplicity, and his dedication to ministering to the poor. Pope Francis is said to have been especially inspired by Saint Francis.

The New York Times just published what strikes me as a competently written account of some key aspects of his papacy.

Francis was elected in March 2013 after the resignation of Benedict, the first pontiff to step down in nearly six centuries, amid turmoil and intrigue about secret lobbies and financial chicanery. The cardinal electors sought a reformer with a strong administrative hand, but few anticipated how Francis, then the 76-year-old archbishop of Buenos Aires, would blend reformist zeal and folksy charm in a push to clean house and transform the church.

“Buona sera,” good evening, Francis announced to the faithful in his first remarks as pope from the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, breaking the ice with unaffected style. He joked about being from Argentina, noting that in fulfilling their duty to produce a pope, “it seems that my brother cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the Earth to get him.” …

Francis signaled his humble style from the outset. He paid his own bill at the Vatican hotel where he stayed during the conclave that elected him, rode about town in a modest Ford Focus, lived in a Vatican guesthouse rather than the ornate papal apartments and, in a Holy Week ritual performed at a youth prison, washed the feet of a young Muslim woman. Later, in his ailing years, he referred to his own frailty in demanding dignity for the aged.

His humility could be disarming. When asked about a priest who was said to be gay, he responded, “Who am I to judge?”

“Who am I to judge?” This statement seemed to recall Jesus’s statement to the Pharisees when they brought before him a woman condemned to be stoned for adultery. When they asked him if she should be stoned in accordance with the Law of Moses, he replied, “If any one of you is without sin, let him throw the first stone.”

Setting aside Paul’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27, the trouble with Francis’s statement is, it seems to me, twofold. First is the fact that Roman Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy—that is, they explicitly renounce sexuality.

Secondly, the Pope’s statement was remarkably tone-deaf to scandals that have rocked the Catholic church in recent decades involving gay priests who have abused minors in their congregations.

In 2018, Francis initially ignored Chilean abuse victims when he appointed Juan Barros Madrid to head the diocese of Osorno in Chile. Barros had been mentored by a notorious abuser named Father Fernando Karadima.

I mention the controversial matter of sexuality not in an attempt to adjudicate it, but to point out the broader controversy of Francis’s papacy—namely, his conspicuous embrace of many elements in the globalist agenda, including his advocacy of mass illegal immigration and what may be characterized as the Climate Change Cult.

In 2016, Francis seemed to throw his prestige behind the globalist propaganda campaign to prevent Donald Trump from being elected president. On February 18, 2016, he stated:

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel.

Seeing this reminded me of the walls around Vatican City. Pope Leo IV commissioned their construction in 846 in response to Saracen attacks that caused significant damage to the St. Peter’s Basilica.

We believe the most disturbing gesture of his papacy was Vatican City’s issuance of a 20 Euro silver coin in 2022. As the Numista catalogue describes it:

The coin depicts a doctor, a nurse and a young person who is ready to receive the vaccine. The Holy Father has repeatedly stressed the importance of vaccination, recalling that healthcare is “a moral obligation”, and it is important to “continue efforts to immunize even the poorest peoples.

Note that the formulation “a young person who is ready to receive the vaccine” is identical to the formulation for a communicant “who is ready to receive the host”—in Italian “pronto a ricevere l’Eucaristia.”

The obverse of the coin bears the name Franciscus, the year 2022 (“Anno MMXXII”) and the Coat of Arms of Pope Francis.

I have no doubt that Francis performed many acts of Christian love and charity during his long life, and I hope he will rest in peace.

 

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