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First March Celebrating Life and Family Held in Brussels

By Gudrun Schultz

BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Thousands of pro-life and family supporters turned out to march in the first European Family Pride demonstration held in Brussels in front of the headquarters of the European Union.

Organizers said the event was intended to bring Catholics together in a show of public support for Church teachings on marriage and family, in the face of growing political liberalism.

Jean-Philippe Raspail, event organizer, told media, “We do not have a tradition of representing our interests as do Catholics in Spain, Portugal, and Italy.”

Alain Escada is the president of Belgique and Chrétienté, an organization dedicated to countering the growing assault on religious freedom in Belgium. In an address to participants he said the family is “anything but an old-fashioned concept. On the contrary, it remains a high ideal.”

Escada called on the “hundreds of associations defending family life” to come together across borders and coordinate efforts to combat the assault on family life and values in Europe.

The European Family Pride Manifesto reads, in part:

Because the family is the foundation upon which a well balanced society is built.
Because weakening the family endangers society itself and is opposed to the common good.
Because we want a society which encourages motherhood, which welcomes the child, protects the disabled and which provides for the well-being of the elderly.
Because we are opposed to abortion and euthanasia.
Because we are utterly opposed to babies being created for spare parts and the human cloning.
Because we want the scientist to recall what is moral and ethical.
Because we believe in the institution of marriage.
Because we refuse to see it given over to parodies.
Because there are those who are playing God and who seek to invert the norm.
Because common sense has to prevail.
Because these same evils which afflict all of Europe.
Because if we want to have good laws we must stand together.
Because many decisions are made by the institutions of the European union.

See  full coverage on blogspot:
http://europeanfamilypride.blogspot.com/

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