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Lawmakers team up against 'evil'
'We are living in a decisive and very important moment'

Inspired by a global gathering of family activists who issued a declaration urging courage, a group of European politicians wasted no time as they huddled before the conference ended to strategize on how they can join forces to overcome the continent's "demographic winter" and "promote life" in the face of fierce opposition.

The fourth World Congress of Families concluded in Poland's capital today after some of the more than 3,300 delegates from 75 countries heard an address prepared by the Vatican's Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, who warned "the situation that has been created in our world with regard to marriage and the family calls for all our efforts."

"We are living in a decisive and very important moment," Trujillo declared in remarks delivered by Fr. Grzegorz Kaszak because the Vatican official was called back to Rome. "If we have bad laws concerning the institutions that are fundamental for the life of society, then we will all suffer and, after us, the generations to come."

That's why more than 30 members of national parliaments and the European Parliament, along with a few activists from nongovernmental groups, met Saturday at Poland's Senate to compare notes, share strategies and draft a plan to help preserve the "natural" family.

Konrad Szymanski, who attended as a Polish member of the European Parliament, told WND that with countries granting rights to homosexual couples and considering legalization of euthanasia," at the moment Europe is going very wrong in terms of traditional values."

Other countries represented by lawmakers included Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia.

Szymanski said he and like-minded members in the European Parliament have some support from Europe's center-right, but family issues aren't necessarily at the top of the agenda.

"They would like to avoid a conflict with the left, which at the moment has a very strong identity and would like to impose a radical agenda on Europe," he said.

Szymanksi said that on some family-related issues he and his colleagues can muster more than 40 percent of the vote, but subjects such as homosexuality are a much bigger challenge.

"I know that a lot of people share our views and share our vision as traditional believers, but they are not eager to voice the message very clearly," he said.

WND reported, Polish leaders, on the other hand, have initiated bold proposals, such as a plan to ban "homosexual propaganda" in schools.

The Congress issued a declaration on its final day, urging the delegates to return home with joy and, "Be not afraid."

Another attendee of Saturday's meeting, Catherine Vierling of France, general secretary of the European Forum for Human Rights and Family, said the event was significant because when members of the European Parliament want to promote "faith, life and family," they often feel alone.

"Their closest friends do not help, so they are exposed to isolation, ostracism, marginalization and exclusion," she told WND.

She noted the case of Rocco Butiglione of Italy, who was in line to become EU minister for justice, freedom and security but was rejected because he believes homosexual behavior is a sin, and he opposes abortion.

"He was just exposed to evil, defamatory propaganda, and nobody supported him, and finally he got kicked out, although he's an excellent man, very professional, very capable," Vierling said.

The significance of the Saturday meeting is clear, she said, as members come to realize, "Oh, but I am not alone."

"Then they start to share, and they witness other members sharing the same questions, the same problems," she said. "And perhaps if they unite, if they support each other, they may have solutions."

Alan Carlson, founder and international secretary for the World Congress of Families, participated in the parliamentarians' meeting. He noted a number of presentations on attempts in various countries "to reverse demographic decline and to encourage family formation."

"They are building formal and informal networks to make sure that Europe does not succumb to demographic winter, that Europe will grow and thrive and become again a land of families and children," he told WND.

Carlson said he hopes all of the World Congress delegates, who include lawmakers from other continents, left encouraged.

"I hope they can take home a sense that the struggle we're in – which is a struggle of worldviews – we're not fighting alone." he said. "We've got allies in other countries, we've got allies around the globe, and the battle we're in is, in many ways, a global battle."

Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., told WND he found it beneficial for Americans to "meet with pro-family leaders from around the world and realize that they are facing the same issues we are."

"Sometimes in the United States we can become a little parochial – we think our country is the world," he said. "So, it's good … to get a broader perspective about how these issues play out around the world and to learn from them – and for them to learn from us."

In the conference's final hours, Focus on the Family Vice President Tom Minnery recounted to the Congress the events leading up to the current struggle in the U.S. over same-sex marriage.

He found inspiration from Poland, which already has passed an amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

"It seems after such a long, difficult 20th century for Poland they are poised to take leadership in the 21st century on the issues of family and issues of religion, so anything we can do to support what's happening here, we're happy to do," he told WND.

Declaration

The declaration issued by the Congress affirmed the "future of humanity passes by way of the family" and "there is no more efficient way for the rebirth of the society than its rebirth through healthy families."

The declaration calls on churches and religious communities to "proclaim the truth about life, marriage, and the family, affirming the latter as the first community of faith and the school of all vocations."

Governing and political bodies are urged "to mainstream the family in public policy as a fundamental and inalienable social good, in order to serve their own nations."

"We call on them to protect every human being from conception to natural death, to stress the upbringing of children as the fundamental right of parents, to protect young people against demoralization, and to promote economic solutions that provide dignified living conditions to all families," the document says.

It concludes:

    And finally, we who are gathered at the World Congress of Families IV call upon all families in the world to: "Be not afraid!" Let us be as one! Let us be the sign of hope! Let us encourage each other and bring happiness and joy!

    Let us inspire hope in all human beings, enabling them to contribute to the "springtime" of Europe and of the world: we commit ourselves to this beautiful task.