Rome, Italy, Sep 27, 2025 /
06:00 am
A professional-life politician who earned respect throughout occasion strains for her unwavering advocacy and integrity has left a long-lasting legacy in Slovakia and European politics following her demise on Aug. 20.
Anna Záborská, 77, constructed a distinguished profession spanning each Slovak and European Parliaments whereas constantly championing conventional household values, spiritual freedom, and the rights of the unborn — positions that sparked controversy but garnered admiration even from political opponents.
Youth and household background
Born in Switzerland in 1948, Záborská was the daughter of Anton Neuwirth, who labored alongside Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Karrer. After the household returned to Czechoslovakia, her father turned a political prisoner beneath the communist regime. Following the autumn of communism, Neuwirth made historical past as the primary ambassador of the newly impartial Slovak Republic to the Holy See.
Political profession
Following her father’s path in each drugs and public service, Záborská constructed a powerful political profession. She served a number of phrases within the Slovak Parliament in Bratislava earlier than being elected to the European Parliament in Brussels, the place she notably chaired the Committee on Ladies’s Rights and Gender Equality.
She later returned to Slovak politics whereas additionally serving as plenipotentiary of the federal government of the Slovak Republic for the safety of freedom of faith or perception.
The place was created in September 2021 by Slovakia’s authorities, which acknowledged “the rising seriousness of the issue of violations of freedom of thought, conscience, and faith on this planet.” Záborská was appointed to this function simply days earlier than Pope Francis visited Slovakia.
The place was eradicated in November 2023.
Advocacy and beliefs
Záborská was a steadfast advocate for pro-life causes, conventional household values, and spiritual freedom. She constantly spoke out for the rights of the unborn, pregnant girls, and what she termed the “pure household.” Her advocacy prolonged internationally, together with help for ladies’s rights in Iran.
She typically drew parallels between communist oppression and trendy secular challenges to non secular freedom. Recalling how communists labeled her father “a Vatican spy,” she famous that some European Parliament colleagues used comparable accusations towards her, suggesting they “unconsciously conform their opinions to those that as soon as helped construct a monstrous communist regime.”
A imaginative and prescient for a continent in disaster
Twenty years in the past, at a Rome convention, Záborská expressed concern about Europe’s course, figuring out “an ever extra profound disaster of European civilization” that she believed was “strictly linked to the disaster of the religion in God and weakening of household.” Regardless of these considerations, she maintained hope that Europe might overcome its challenges by means of “untiring instructing of the Church amongst peoples sustained by affected person diplomacy of the Holy See.”
Whereas Záborská’s positions generated controversy and criticism from excessive leftists, radical feminists, and abortion advocates, she earned respect throughout occasion strains for her integrity and consistency.
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A progressive Slovak day by day acknowledged that “she was admired, even past her supporters, for her integrity and consistency. Few Slovak politicians of her technology maintained such a gentle ideological course over a long time.”
Some inside her personal conservative circle sometimes seen her kindness as a political weak point. Nonetheless, Archbishop Bernard Bober, chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Convention in Slovakia, praised her character: “She was a girl with an open coronary heart who might convey individuals along with kindness, tenderness, and peace.” He emphasised that her religion was not merely rhetorical however “a life-style, which she confirmed in service and work.”
Philanthropic work
Past her political actions, Záborská demonstrated her dedication to her values by means of private sacrifice, donating a good portion of her parliamentary wage to charitable causes that help girls and the schooling of younger Catholic intellectuals.
Bober summarized her life’s message as: “Loyalty, humility, and repair have the ability to alter the world for the higher.”
Bohumil Petrík is the one recognized journalist from Slovakia and all of ex-Czechoslovakia accredited to the Holy See.
He was an intern with EWTN in Rome, at Vatican Radio in addition to within the communications division of the European Parliament in Brussels. Initially from Slovakia, he studied within the Czech Republic and at the moment lives in Rome.
