World Congress on Families Asks Physicians for Help
The World Congress on Families, which met last week in Warsaw, Poland, announced in its closing declaration that the various threats to the family in Europe are creating a “demographic winter” that can only be healed by the protection and nurturing of the natural family.
Love; faithfulness; gift of self as opposed to hedonism; dedication to divine truth in the face of relativism; love for, instead of fear of children; and reverence for human life in the face of discrimination and “extermination of the weakest” are listed by the Congress as among the gifts of the natural family.
Healthy natural families are the “natural essence as a community of love and life,” that will bring about the “rebirth of the society.”
With plummeting birth rates and aging populations, the Congress said that Europe is facing a “demographic winter”.
The fourth World Congress on Families was organized by the Howard Centre for Family, Religion and Society and is starting to be recognized as the leading international congress opposing the “culture of death”.
Attendees heard from Margarita Zavala Gomez Del Campo, First Lady of Mexico, who addressed the Congress by letter, writing, “When you protect the family, you are protecting society and the nation.”
The First Lady continued, “The topic of protecting the family transcends all because it is in family where we learn the fundamental moral values needed in today’s world – solidarity, respect, responsibility, love and forgiveness.”
The Chairman of the US Christian Film and Television Commission, Dr. Ted Baehr spoke at the Congress warning that the American movie and TV industry is influencing young people into an anti-family set of values, foreign to most traditional societies such as Poland.
Baehr, an award-winning producer, writer, director, radio & TV personality, delivered a presentation titled “Protecting the Eyes of the Innocent: The Culture-wise Family.”
He said he had been eager to attend the Congress not only because of its support for the traditional family, but because it also applies high levels of research, theology, and philosophy in its defence.
In its final declaration, the Congress called for governments to “mainstream the family in public policy,” to “protect every human being from conception to natural death” and to defend the fundamental rights of parents in the upbringing of children.
The Congress asked for physicians to defend the right of conscience and to “faithfully safeguard human life” and for journalists to serve truth and “remain objective.”
Related: Pro-family Leaders at World Congress Present Specific Strategies for Promoting the Family
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/may/07052208.html
[24May07, Hilary White, Warsaw, LifeSiteNews.com]