‘False Advertising’: Christian Democracy or Illiberal Democracy?

It has plenty of good reasons for doing so. Fidesz has not only dismantled democracy and the rule of law in Hungary, but also demonised the EU as a tyrannical institution that is supposedly robbing Europeans of their freedom.

Since Fidesz's suspension, Orban has hit back by arguing that he alone is the real defender of Christian Democracy, and that his EPP critics are sellouts to liberalism. Orban's posturing has seduced conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic. But the image he is projecting is false advertising.

It would be a mistake to think that the Fidesz-EPP conflict is mainly about political principles; it is about power, plain and simple.

Still, the question of who will claim the legacy of Christian Democracy matters a great deal to Europe. Historically, Christian Democracy has been the most important political force behind the project of European integration.

Yet, despite its enormous historical significance, Christian Democracy — its ideas and institutions — are not well understood. The ideology has no obvious founders or canonical thinkers, and, unlike liberalism, it lacks a conceptual anchor that distinguishes it clearly from other strands of political thought.

It would be a mistake to think that the Fidesz-EPP conflict is mainly about political principles; it is about power, plain and simple.

Christian Democracy was born in the nineteenth century as a means of reconciling Christianity —  particularly Catholicism — with modern democracy. Its protagonists accepted French aristocrat (and Catholic) Alexis de Tocqueville's seminal insight that democracy was an unstoppable world-historical force. The question, then, was how to make it safe for religion.

One answer was through political...