By Gudrun Schultz
WARSAW, Poland, March 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The fourth World Congress of Families will meet in Warsaw this year, May 11-13, drawing together pro-life and pro-family leaders from around the world to form a united front against the forces of liberalism and secularism.
The theme of the Congress is “Beyond Demographic Winter: The Natural Family as the Springtime of Nations.”
“As “demographic winter” descends over Europe, plunging birthrates coincide with heavy immigration, primarily from Muslim lands. Following the logic of Mark Steyn’s America Alone, many conservatives have largely written off “old Europe” as a lost cause,” Dr. Allan Carlson, founder and International Secretary of the World Congress of Families, wrote for Human Events on March 22, 2007.
“This is unfortunate, for two reasons. First, courageous pro-family champions and organizations exist in every European country, even in hotbeds of militant secularism such as France, Sweden, and Spain. Second, several recent members of the European Union have elected strong pro-family governments, notably Latvia, Slovakia, and Poland. Despite intense pressures from EU bureaucrats in Brussels, these countries have implemented innovative programs to support natural families, grounded in marriage and welcoming towards children.”
Dr. Carlson said the WCF IV planning committee, decided to hold the fourth Congress in Poland as an encouragement to such positive pro-family developments, since, “If Europe is lost to demographic winter and radical secularism, much of the world will go with it.”
The Congresses are the largest international gathering of pro-family advocates, academics and politicians.
“More than 3,500 delegates from over 70 countries are expected to attend WCF IV. We will work together to protect human life (from conception to natural death), preserve traditional marriage, strengthen the natural family and oppose threats thereto (including pornography, Hollywood and anti-family bureaucrats),” the WCF said in a press release March 27.
The Congress is watched with deep suspicion by feminist and homosexual activism groups, the WCF acknowledged in a press release March 27—the uniting of multiple religions and nations under a common goal of protecting family life, freedom of religion and the basic rights of children is cause for concern among organizations seeking to promote individualistic and secularist values.
Poland’s pro-family president, Lech Kaczynski, will act as honorary patron of the Congress and will deliver opening remarks.
“We are honored to have President Kaczynski as the keynote speaker and Patron of the Congress,” said Dr. Carlson. “His well-known commitment to the family is very much in keeping with the theme of [the Congress.]”
Archbishop-Emeritus Kazimierz Majdanski is another patron of the event and has given it his blessing—the Archbishop survived the Dachau concentration camp during World War II and founded the Polish Institute for the Study of the Family.
Three previous World Congresses of Families were held in Prague (1997), Geneva (1999) and Mexico City (2004).
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
World Congress of Families President Condemns EU Ban on Home Schooling
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/oct/06101303.html
See World Congress of Families website
https://www.worldcongress.org/