“Let’s show that we who stand for life also stand with women”

You once told to Képmás magazine that "I'm exactly where I'm meant to be. Everything God has given me has found its fulfilment here in Transcarpathia." How do you maintain your inner peace while living through four years of war and regularly accompanying women who have undergone abortions?

I think it depends less on the macro environment than on the micro one. Even in extremely difficult circumstances, life can still be good if you have sources of strength within your family and among your friends - if there's a network of people around you who can hold you up. 

And beyond that, I honestly don't think we can draw our deepest strength from anywhere except God.

If every day I can simply place myself in His presence and experience being loved unconditionally - regardless of how I'm feeling or what state I'm in - then one becomes capable of enduring an extraordinary amount.

Your latest role is serving as Pro-Life Coordinator for the Family Commission. How did this appointment come about, and what does it involve?

Five years ago, when Bishop László Bíró handed over the leadership of the Family Commission, Bishop Zsolt Marton asked Fr Péter Roska to reorganise the Pro-Life Working Group. He invited several of us to join. After those five years, the bishop felt it was time for a new phase. I put my ideas on paper, and after reading them, he asked me to take on this responsibility: coordinating the pro-life activities of the Hungarian Catholic Church within the Family Commission.

My task is to develop and implement a strategy within the Church through which the protection of life becomes an integral part of evangelisation. I don't think pro-life work should be treated as a separate issue, because ultimately it's about life itself - about the way God is at work within every human person, and what an extraordinary gift that is. This isn't a defensive or combative approach. I don't believe anyone has ever convinced the other side by shouting across ideological trenches. Instead of focusing exclusively either on the unborn child's right to life or on the woman's right to choose, I'd rather show that those of us who are pro-life also stand with women. Because every abortion has two victims: the woman and her child.

Being pro-life is therefore much broader than protecting unborn life alone. It encompasses the whole span of human existence - from conception until natural death - and at its heart lies the dignity of every human person.

And life is not only something to defend; it is something to proclaim. At a time when even marriage, starting a family or having children have become questions people hesitate over because of climate anxiety, war and uncertainty, it is more important than ever to show the beauty of life.

So you believe the language of the pro-life movement needs to change?

Yes. Unfortunately, I don't think repeatedly shouting, "The unborn child is a human being!" is going to persuade many people anymore - perhaps only younger generations. When young people see ultrasound images showing tiny hands, feet, a beating heart and even fingerprints, many of them still recognise that this is a living human being. Their thinking hasn't yet been shaped by decades of ideological battles. But overall, we simply can't compete with the momentum of today's pro-choice narrative by using the same confrontational methods. I often think of the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, when Nehemiah called people to rebuild it one brick at a time. Pope Leo XIV also refers to this image in his recent encyclical. We cannot restore everything in one sweeping effort. We cannot rebuild the whole Church - or society - all at once. Each of us simply brings our own brick, and gradually, something beautiful begins to emerge...

This kind of rebuilding from the ground up changes hearts. When people come to know us personally and discover that we genuinely stand alongside women, their thinking may slowly begin to change. At the same time, whenever the Church - or those of us serving in pro-life ministry - are asked questions, we must be ready with clear, understandable answers that faithfully communicate the Church's teaching. 

Even if we never organise massive national campaigns, imagine the impact if several thousand people could explain these truths with clarity, compassion and credibility in their workplaces, schools, neighbourhoods and families. That is how society changes, like yeast working quietly through the dough.

At the moment, perhaps that is precisely our calling.

Another important aspect is bringing the conversation down to the level of everyday life. Rather than relying on abstract philosophy or complex legal and theological arguments, we need to explain in clear, accessible language what the Church teaches about protecting life and why those teachings are ultimately good for human beings while remaining faithful to their original meaning. Jesus Himself didn't say to the woman caught in adultery, "I understand. Your husband is awful, so just carry on as before." Instead, He told her, "Go, and sin no more." But before He spoke those words, He entered into her reality. He met her with a love so profound that it enabled her to look beyond the life she had been living. That is the method we should follow as well. At the same time, the Church's teaching must also be practical. People turn to the Church with life's most pressing questions - about its beginning and its end, about the moral challenges within family life - and they rightly expect concrete answers that speak directly to their own circumstances.

Is there another aspect that deserves more attention? The Church is often criticised for "just preaching."

Absolutely. Clear teaching isn't enough we also have to offer practical help. Otherwise it's easy for people to ask, "And what do you do once the baby is born?" In reality, the Church already does a great deal for women facing crisis pregnancies, although much of that work remains invisible. One of our goals is to ensure that genuine help is available throughout the Church. We're working to build a network in which every diocese has a designated coordinator, while parishes also have people who carry the protection of life in their hearts and are able to represent it with credibility, compassion and warmth and they know where to direct people seeking help.

For example, they should be able to guide someone experiencing an unexpected pregnancy, struggling with infertility, or looking for restorative reproductive medicine.

We've already gathered these resources together and we want to provide future parish pro-life representatives with practical training materials that also meet professional standards. Enthusiasm alone isn't enough: people must also be well prepared because a truth presented without competence or compassion can end up causing great harm.

What are your thoughts on the possible repeal of the fetal heartbeat requirement before abortion?

I understand that if a woman has already decided she wants an abortion, she may not wish to hear her baby's heartbeat. But one form of love is helping someone face the truth. We've seen many cases where all a woman needed was someone to affirm that she really is a mother - because abortion doesn't erase motherhood, it makes the woman the mother of a child who has died. When a woman recognises that the life she is carrying is truly her own child, that realisation can sometimes help her make a decision. If she still chooses abortion, then hearing the heartbeat may indeed make it more difficult to face the consequences afterwards. But the decision remains hers.

The heartbeat is simply one more piece of information that can help her decide. One of the greatest lies surrounding abortion is the idea that it is always a fully informed and completely free choice. A truly informed decision means knowing what is happening: that the life growing within you is not merely a collection of cells, but a human being with hands, feet and a beating heart. Hearing the heartbeat is part of being fully informed. The question of freedom is equally important. Very often, women's freedom is taken away in the very name of the law.

More than sixty percent of women undergo abortions under severe pressure and many under outright coercion.

In some places, women are even forced to take abortion pills because the procedure is legal. Sometimes the pressure comes from their own partners or family members and no one protects their right to make a genuinely free decision. That is why, in many cases, the "free and informed choice" simply does not reflect reality.

You mentioned abortion pills. What consequences do you think their wider availability could have?

Medical abortion makes it even easier to conceal abuse as someone can simply force a woman to swallow the pills, and no one else may ever know what happened. If abortion pills become widely available, identifying cases of domestic violence will become even more difficult. There's another important aspect as well. When a woman takes the pills herself, she becomes an active participant in the abortion, rather than someone who experiences it passively. Of course, even a surgical abortion is ultimately her decision, and it happens to her body. But during surgery she remains largely passive, whereas taking the medication herself is a direct personal action. Moreover, much of the process unfolds at home, creating an entirely different psychological reality.

For example, American pregnancy helplines receive many calls like this: "There's something that looks like a tiny human being. It just came out of me. What am I supposed to do with it?" For many women, this is the moment when they fully realise what has happened. If anything is traumatising, it is this. 

And it all takes place in their own bathroom, a place they return to every single day and each visit can trigger painful memories, causing the trauma to resurface again and again.

With a hospital procedure, by contrast, the woman is not actively involved in every stage of what happens. Afterwards, she leaves that environment and returns home. So while abortion pills may appear to offer a simpler solution, the psychological consequences often emerge far more quickly and with much greater intensity and deptt than after a surgical abortion.

The English translation was produced with large language model and reviewed by a human editor.