World Congress of Families Pledges Solidarity with Europe

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

     (NEW YORK — C-FAM)    The Fourth World Congress of Families convened 3,000 pro-family participants pledging solidarity with Poland and other European nations fighting attempts to undermine the family in their countries. Calling Poland “Europe’s Last Best Hope for the Family,” the speakers addressing the Congress repeatedly reassured the Europeans that they were “not alone.”

     In a statement read during the opening ceremony on Friday, Polish President Lech Kaczynski noted that promoting the family was a matter of national survival. He said that demographic decline in Europe, from which even pro-family Poland has not been immune, is having a significant negative economic impact. To reverse the trend, he said, pro-family policies must be instituted at various levels of public policy.

     U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey touched on one of the more controversial debates in international law, and one in which the U.S. and Europeans have diverged during debates at the UN. She affirmed the position found in foundational human rights documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declares that the family is legally above the state. More recent human rights treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) have been used to argue that the family is just one of many institutions and does not deserve special protections by the state. Sauerbrey noted that “more than 2000 years ago Cicero spoke of the family as ‘the seedbed’ of the state. The state did not create the family; rather, families created the state.”

     The entire crowd rose to their feet for a statement read on behalf of Archbishop Kazimierz Majdanski. The archbishop died shortly before the Congress convened and the enormous respect for his personal and pastoral dedication to the family was palpable as Dr. Monika Wojcik read his greetings to the conference. Speaking of the spiritual battles behind the struggle for the family, the archbishop asked whether the demographic winter being visited upon Poland was not a “revenge” because Poland was the land of Pope John Paul II.

     Looking ahead to the future of the family, bioethicists Wesley Smith, Nigel Cameron and others focused on diverging definitions of the human being among scientists and policy makers. Cameron argued that to ignore the centrality of this controversy is to cede the debate on such issues as human cloning, abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. He told the Congress that the ranks of government panels and regulatory boards are getting filled by officials who share a belief in “transhumanism," the belief that new science and technology will so enhance the capabilities of human beings that they will become “post-human.” While this prospect might be many years away, he said, it is already introducing a mechanical vocabulary into the way experts talk about the human being, changing attitudes about human life and the family.

     Dozens of other speakers appeared at the conference which is held every two years. The site of the next conference has yet to be determined.

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