World Congress of Families, Verona

LOUISE KIRK, UK Co-ordinator for Alive to the World, reports for CF NEWS - Family campaigners are on the winning side. This was the message from the Thirteenth World Congress of Families (WCF) XIII, held in Verona under the chairmanship of Antonio Brandi between 29-31 March, 201

World Congress of Families, Verona

 

LOUISE KIRK, UK Co-ordinator for Alive to the World, reports for CF NEWS - Family campaigners are on the winning side. This was the message from the Thirteenth World Congress of Families (WCF) XIII, held in Verona under the chairmanship of Antonio Brandi between 29-31 March, 2019.

The claim was strikingly made by Steve Turley early in the Congress. Turley began by showing that, despite the contrary environment in which most fighters for the family work, the pointers to a different future are already there. Forward looking scholars write of the "post secular age" to take account of the biggest worldwide revival of religious practice the world has ever seen. And with religious practice comes greater interest in the family and larger numbers of children: in the US, religious women are 30% more fertile than secular ones. Even within two generations the political effects will be seen, with postmodernists failing to reproduce themselves at the rate of people of faith in many countries of the world - France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, were examples, while Georgia, which hosted WCFXI in 2016, has swung from having one of the lowest to one of the highest fertility rates in Eastern Europe.

Not only are we winning, but the secular liberals are panicking and there is nothing that they can do to stop the change in culture that will come with these demographics.

Another tangible sign of progress was our meeting hall. This was in a 17th Century palazzo in the centre of Verona given to the World Congress by the Mayor of Verona, free of charge. The World Congress movement is now supported by leading politicians in host countries. In Verona we were addressed by Matteo Salvini, the Vice Premier, by Elisabetta Gardini, MEP and Leader of Forza Italia in the Eurropean Parliament, and by the Ministers for Education and for Family and Disabilities. Massimo Gandolfini, Founder of the Family Day, remarked that just four years before holding such a Congress in Italy would have been a pipedream.

Leading examples from other countries

Katalin Novak, Hungarian Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, explained how the Budapest WCF of 2017 had fed into government policies. Her speech outlined eye-watering incentives for young people to marry and have children, including a €35,000 unallocated loan which becomes non-reimbursable with a third child, and a €35,000 housing grant payable to the mother in the first trimester of her first pregnancy. The Hungarians have looked at the typical hurdles modern couples face in marrying and having families and have targeted assistance accordingly, producing help e.g. for childcare and even for 7-seater cars. Mothers of four children are excused income tax for the rest of their lives. What is more, their measures are beginning to bite. In the last few years, the number of marriages has begun to increase, divorces diminish and the fertility rate to rise. Levan Vazadze, President of the Tbilisi WCF of 2016, spoke of similar improvements in Georgia.

Eastern Europeans in general had a strong presence at the Congress. The Moldovans, hosts of WCF XII in 2018, handed over the baton to the Italians in the opening ceremonies, while the Russians had a delegation of some twenty strong. Zeljka Markic of Croatia explained in a much acclaimed speech at the end of the Congress why the profamily fight strikes such a chord in former communist countries. "We in Croatia experienced three totalitarian states, and we do not want another. The state must protect the rights of women to work and also to have children. We have a right to our own political representatives who fight for our cause. We in Croatia are a small people. Our last fight for freedom was only 25 years ago, and at such a high price. Many sacrificed their lives for freedom, and now we want to be free, with our own values."

A newcomer to the scene was Brazil. The country's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has reversed the country's anti-life politics and declared that in future all public policy must be seen through the prism of the family. Dr Angela Vidal Gandra in the newly created role of First Secretary for the Family, gave a spirited speech pointing to the direct connection between household and public economics: it makes sense to support family life because where families thrive, the country and human rights prosper too. Vidal Gandra pointed out that the government has been elected to tackle Brazil's crisis of corruption and by promoting strong family life they are creating a forge for the ethical values which the country so badly needs. Married families work better and become more engaged with the common good. The Brazilian government recognises parents as primary educators, is encouraging them to talk to their own children about sexuality, and is about to give them freedom to home school. It is currently studying how to take better care of the old and infirm, and to strengthen intergenerational bonds. Another challenge is to find the best ways to help women put their families first while being free also to work outside the home.

Battling the opposition

If the tone of the Congress was upbeat, the opposition was equally strong. We pushed our way into the Congress building through police guards, and journalists circled round the "antis" outside, who formed themselves into a large demonstration on the Saturday when the Italian dignitaries addressed us. Salvini and his colleagues' speeches were pitched as much to those outside the hall as to us within, loudly protesting the fake news and downright lies with which they had been harassed for weeks and months b

World Congress of Families, Verona

 

LOUISE KIRK, UK Co-ordinator for Alive to the World, reports for CF NEWS - Family campaigners are on the winning side. This was the message from the Thirteenth World Congress of Families (WCF) XIII, held in Verona under the chairmanship of Antonio Brandi between 29-31 March, 2019.

The claim was strikingly made by Steve Turley early in the Congress. Turley began by showing that, despite the contrary environment in which most fighters for the family work, the pointers to a different future are already there. Forward looking scholars write of the "post secular age" to take account of the biggest worldwide revival of religious practice the world has ever seen. And with religious practice comes greater interest in the family and larger numbers of children: in the US, religious women are 30% more fertile than secular ones. Even within two generations the political effects will be seen, with postmodernists failing to reproduce themselves at the rate of people of faith in many countries of the world - France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, were examples, while Georgia, which hosted WCFXI in 2016, has swung from having one of the lowest to one of the highest fertility rates in Eastern Europe.

Not only are we winning, but the secular liberals are panicking and there is nothing that they can do to stop the change in culture that will come with these demographics.

Another tangible sign of progress was our meeting hall. This was in a 17th Century palazzo in the centre of Verona given to the World Congress by the Mayor of Verona, free of charge. The World Congress movement is now supported by leading politicians in host countries. In Verona we were addressed by Matteo Salvini, the Vice Premier, by Elisabetta Gardini, MEP and Leader of Forza Italia in the Eurropean Parliament, and by the Ministers for Education and for Family and Disabilities. Massimo Gandolfini, Founder of the Family Day, remarked that just four years before holding such a Congress in Italy would have been a pipedream.

Leading examples from other countries

Katalin Novak, Hungarian Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, explained how the Budapest WCF of 2017 had fed into government policies. Her speech outlined eye-watering incentives for young people to marry and have children, including a €35,000 unallocated loan which becomes non-reimbursable with a third child, and a €35,000 housing grant payable to the mother in the first trimester of her first pregnancy. The Hungarians have looked at the typical hurdles modern couples face in marrying and having families and have targeted assistance accordingly, producing help e.g. for childcare and even for 7-seater cars. Mothers of four children are excused income tax for the rest of their lives. What is more, their measures are beginning to bite. In the last few years, the number of marriages has begun to increase, divorces diminish and the fertility rate to rise. Levan Vazadze, President of the Tbilisi WCF of 2016, spoke of similar improvements in Georgia.

Eastern Europeans in general had a strong presence at the Congress. The Moldovans, hosts of WCF XII in 2018, handed over the baton to the Italians in the opening ceremonies, while the Russians had a delegation of some twenty strong. Zeljka Markic of Croatia explained in a much acclaimed speech at the end of the Congress why the profamily fight strikes such a chord in former communist countries. "We in Croatia experienced three totalitarian states, and we do not want another. The state must protect the rights of women to work and also to have children. We have a right to our own political representatives who fight for our cause. We in Croatia are a small people. Our last fight for freedom was only 25 years ago, and at such a high price. Many sacrificed their lives for freedom, and now we want to be free, with our own values."

A newcomer to the scene was Brazil. The country's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has reversed the country's anti-life politics and declared that in future all public policy must be seen through the prism of the family. Dr Angela Vidal Gandra in the newly created role of First Secretary for the Family, gave a spirited speech pointing to the direct connection between household and public economics: it makes sense to support family life because where families thrive, the country and human rights prosper too. Vidal Gandra pointed out that the government has been elected to tackle Brazil's crisis of corruption and by promoting strong family life they are creating a forge for the ethical values which the country so badly needs. Married families work better and become more engaged with the common good. The Brazilian government recognises parents as primary educators, is encouraging them to talk to their own children about sexuality, and is about to give them freedom to home school. It is currently studying how to take better care of the old and infirm, and to strengthen intergenerational bonds. Another challenge is to find the best ways to help women put their families first while being free also to work outside the home.

Battling the opposition

If the tone of the Congress was upbeat, the opposition was equally strong. We pushed our way into the Congress building through police guards, and journalists circled round the "antis" outside, who formed themselves into a large demonstration on the Saturday when the Italian dignitaries addressed us. Salvini and his colleagues' speeches were pitched as much to those outside the hall as to us within, loudly protesting the fake news and downright lies with which they had been harassed for weeks and months beforehand. They objected to the accusation that the Congress had gathered in hate and was attached to far right politics. They also protested their freedom to speak out in favour of marriage and large families regardless of their personal lives. (Salvini is divorced and Gardini the mother of a single child born out of wedlock - the Antis cannot cope with pro-family ministers who have irregular family profiles themselves). "I have come straight from the ironing," declared the glamorous Gardini, targeting yet another lie, that profamily politics keep women from careers, whereas in fact good mothers bring invaluable experience to the workplace. "Family policy is medieval?" challenged a speaker from the Netherlands, "No, it is much older than that: it dates from the beginning of history."

The interrelationship between sexual licence and violence was a theme noted by several speakers. One of the most moving was from Don Fortunato Di Noto who spoke of the 85 million children who are currently victims, of sexual licence, trafficked, enslaved and aborted. He has been working among children for 30 years from his base in Sicily, which he helped in 1997 to become the first country in the world to have a Parliamentary motion against porn. He lamented that there are now some 3 million paedophilic websites and that there is a huge market in preteen porn. Fr Fortunato now has to travel with a bodyguard.

 

 

Faith as a necessary core to family revival

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco explained that in the sexual revolution it is always women and children who suffer most. We must be prepared to say this, and not act as though boys and girls face equal risks. He pointed to a general loss of the sense of the sacred which is also reflected in the decline of marriage but warned against being drawn ourselves into hostile attitudes. Just as our worship needs to be centred on the Other, so too our love must be other-centred and include in its embrace those whose morals we dislike. Crowds can represent stereotypes but not individual people. Listening to each person's point of view is the way to tenderise hearts and bring back civility. Just as the Jews in Old Testament times felt a constant tug towards paganism, so we all feel the tug to being self-centred. To combat this, we need to rely on God's grace: we will not do it on our own. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph added that, while our dealings with others must always be loving, we do need to discuss morality, because if we fear to mention it morality itself diminishes.

The Evangelical Rev Jim Garlow spoke of daring to use religious language in the public sphere, saying that we are much too cautious. The Genesis account of the human family has a particular beauty which draws people to a new understanding of truth. He pointed out that the first two chapters begin with the creation of male and female, then of marriage and then of procreation, whereas the enemies of truth attack in reverse order: abortion, redefinition of marriage and now the non-specificity of male and female. The Rev Garlow then gave a fascinating digest of the original Hebrew of Genesis. God is neither male nor female, but we are made in his image. The male and the female can thus only partly reflect the spectrum of God's image: they need each other to reflect the whole. This explains why Genesis comments that God does not find his initial creation of a-dam, humankind, good: Adam on his own has no capacity for relationship. And so God takes from Adam what we call a rib, but in the Hebrew is a full half of Adam, and creates Eve. With the creation of the female, the male is also transformed, and the Hebrew names show this. Thus it is that the male and female fit so well together because they belong together. The Rev Garlow went on to talk about how the name of God relates to the Hebrew names for man and woman, and to the fire between them, which can be either good or bad. He explained that he has seen insights from the Bible pierce the hearts of hardened atheists, and that his organisation now runs weekly bible studies in the UN, in Congress and in Europe.

Joe Grabowski, Executive Director of the International Organisation for the Family, said that religion contributes to public policy because it works from the inside, not making laws but remaking people. Legal reform is necessary, but more important still is the remodelling of the human heart on which civilization itself depends. He added that there were many lawyers active at the time of the Fall of Rome. The Duke of Anjou emphasised that a society without religion fills with ideologies and ideologies kill. Culture reaches equilibrium when the weak are supported but the strong are allowed to strive. John Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, voiced the longing of many present for clear moral teaching from church leaders. "When our religious leaders speak out, we all wake up."

Radicalism and its international hold

Nobody present underestimated the difficulties of turning society round. The clamour at the door from the Antis, and the hundreds of journalists in the room were a living reminder that campaigning for mothers and fathers and their children is now very controversial. There were many workshops covering specific issues, too many to enumerate here, though it is worth saying that the Italians contributed a strong case for showing how family values can be profitably lived out in family-run businesses (which make up 30% of Italian employment).

The starkest reminder of the strength and radicalism of the opposition was summed up by Sharon Slater, of Family Watch International. She described how agencies at the UN are targeting children to shape the minds and hearts of the next generation. The excerpts she read from the International technical guidance on sexuality education: an evidence-informed approach produced by UNESCO and others in January 2018 were as horrifying as the WHO's earlier WHO Standards for Sex Ed in Europe 2010. She explained that International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), with its 65,000 service points in countries worldwide, is the silent partner behind all these agencies. The money it makes out of providing contraception, abortion and transgender treatments is colossal, and the younger the children the more the profit.

Tori Black, of United Families International, gave some background as to how the UN had come to be involved. When the United Nations was designed, its creators thought that there should be a more constructive way to keep peace than just by stopping bombs. It would therefore be part of the United Nations' brief also to promote a higher way of living, in which the dignity and flourishing of each person, and especially children and women, would be protected. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was originally set up in 1946 to provide food and medicine to children and mothers devastated by World War ll. In 1948 the UN Charter of Human Rights, which spoke strongly of the family as the first cell of society, was adopted. There followed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979, and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC0) in 1989. Unfortunately, these good intentions have been obstructed by radical feminists and others who have infiltrated the very organs which were originally designed to promote religious freedom and family life. Powerful bureaucrats promote their humanist ideas in universities, especially in the West, and mould the way future UN delegates think. It took decades for this subversion to take root, and we are now seeing the results.

What can be done

The Antis work globally, and to be successful the pro-family movement must do likewise. It was to facilitate this that the WCF was created and throughout the conference common problems and solutions were aired. Ignacio Arsuaga, President of CitizenGo, kicked off by saying activists should learn to work globally as well as nationally, because united efforts transcend anything that can be done by one country on its own. We have to be prepared to knock out political correctness and confront enemies however powerful - and we can expect unpleasant threats. It is better to redirect than to destroy civil structures wherever possible, taking care to elect the right people and transforming the environment of those who are in power. To do this, one needs to mobilise people, lots of people, and make the liberals fear us. And for this we need to pray, trust in God and show our truth to the world.

Levan Vasadze said that holding a Congress will itself change the host country, as WCF X had changed Georgia. He pointed to other notable turning points in 2016: the election of Donald Trump in the US, which had relieved sodomizing pressure on smaller countries, the rise of new conservative leaders in Europe, and growing opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberals. Now we must insist on replacing human rights with the rights of the human family, which will entail a reversal of our thought processes. We need to develop an affirmative narrative with the help of professionals in the field, and work hard to support whichever country is best able to take the lead in putting it into operation. Rights should always be accompanied by obligations, and theocentrism replace anthropism, so bringing God back into the centre of life. We are not seeking to become globalists, but to take pride in our own national identities while working constructively together.

Christine Vollmer of the Latin American

World Congress of Families, Verona

 

LOUISE KIRK, UK Co-ordinator for Alive to the World, reports for CF NEWS - Family campaigners are on the winning side. This was the message from the Thirteenth World Congress of Families (WCF) XIII, held in Verona under the chairmanship of Antonio Brandi between 29-31 March, 2019.

The claim was strikingly made by Steve Turley early in the Congress. Turley began by showing that, despite the contrary environment in which most fighters for the family work, the pointers to a different future are already there. Forward looking scholars write of the "post secular age" to take account of the biggest worldwide revival of religious practice the world has ever seen. And with religious practice comes greater interest in the family and larger numbers of children: in the US, religious women are 30% more fertile than secular ones. Even within two generations the political effects will be seen, with postmodernists failing to reproduce themselves at the rate of people of faith in many countries of the world - France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, were examples, while Georgia, which hosted WCFXI in 2016, has swung from having one of the lowest to one of the highest fertility rates in Eastern Europe.

Not only are we winning, but the secular liberals are panicking and there is nothing that they can do to stop the change in culture that will come with these demographics.

Another tangible sign of progress was our meeting hall. This was in a 17th Century palazzo in the centre of Verona given to the World Congress by the Mayor of Verona, free of charge. The World Congress movement is now supported by leading politicians in host countries. In Verona we were addressed by Matteo Salvini, the Vice Premier, by Elisabetta Gardini, MEP and Leader of Forza Italia in the Eurropean Parliament, and by the Ministers for Education and for Family and Disabilities. Massimo Gandolfini, Founder of the Family Day, remarked that just four years before holding such a Congress in Italy would have been a pipedream.

Leading examples from other countries

Katalin Novak, Hungarian Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, explained how the Budapest WCF of 2017 had fed into government policies. Her speech outlined eye-watering incentives for young people to marry and have children, including a €35,000 unallocated loan which becomes non-reimbursable with a third child, and a €35,000 housing grant payable to the mother in the first trimester of her first pregnancy. The Hungarians have looked at the typical hurdles modern couples face in marrying and having families and have targeted assistance accordingly, producing help e.g. for childcare and even for 7-seater cars. Mothers of four children are excused income tax for the rest of their lives. What is more, their measures are beginning to bite. In the last few years, the number of marriages has begun to increase, divorces diminish and the fertility rate to rise. Levan Vazadze, President of the Tbilisi WCF of 2016, spoke of similar improvements in Georgia.

Eastern Europeans in general had a strong presence at the Congress. The Moldovans, hosts of WCF XII in 2018, handed over the baton to the Italians in the opening ceremonies, while the Russians had a delegation of some twenty strong. Zeljka Markic of Croatia explained in a much acclaimed speech at the end of the Congress why the profamily fight strikes such a chord in former communist countries. "We in Croatia experienced three totalitarian states, and we do not want another. The state must protect the rights of women to work and also to have children. We have a right to our own political representatives who fight for our cause. We in Croatia are a small people. Our last fight for freedom was only 25 years ago, and at such a high price. Many sacrificed their lives for freedom, and now we want to be free, with our own values."

A newcomer to the scene was Brazil. The country's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has reversed the country's anti-life politics and declared that in future all public policy must be seen through the prism of the family. Dr Angela Vidal Gandra in the newly created role of First Secretary for the Family, gave a spirited speech pointing to the direct connection between household and public economics: it makes sense to support family life because where families thrive, the country and human rights prosper too. Vidal Gandra pointed out that the government has been elected to tackle Brazil's crisis of corruption and by promoting strong family life they are creating a forge for the ethical values which the country so badly needs. Married families work better and become more engaged with the common good. The Brazilian government recognises parents as primary educators, is encouraging them to talk to their own children about sexuality, and is about to give them freedom to home school. It is currently studying how to take better care of the old and infirm, and to strengthen intergenerational bonds. Another challenge is to find the best ways to help women put their families first while being free also to work outside the home.

Battling the opposition

If the tone of the Congress was upbeat, the opposition was equally strong. We pushed our way into the Congress building through police guards, and journalists circled round the "antis" outside, who formed themselves into a large demonstration on the Saturday when the Italian dignitaries addressed us. Salvini and his colleagues' speeches were pitched as much to those outside the hall as to us within, loudly protesting the fake news and downright lies with which they had been harassed for weeks and months beforehand. They objected to the accusation that the Congress had gathered in hate and was attached to far right politics. They also protested their freedom to speak out in favour of marriage and large families regardless of their personal lives. (Salvini is divorced and Gardini the mother of a single child born out of wedlock - the Antis cannot cope with pro-family ministers who have irregular family profiles themselves). "I have come straight from the ironing," declared the glamorous Gardini, targeting yet another lie, that profamily politics keep women from careers, whereas in fact good mothers bring invaluable experience to the workplace. "Family policy is medieval?" challenged a speaker from the Netherlands, "No, it is much older than that: it dates from the beginning of history."

The interrelationship between sexual licence and violence was a theme noted by several speakers. One of the most moving was from Don Fortunato Di Noto who spoke of the 85 million children who are currently victims, of sexual licence, trafficked, enslaved and aborted. He has been working among children for 30 years from his base in Sicily, which he helped in 1997 to become the first country in the world to have a Parliamentary motion against porn. He lamented that there are now some 3 million paedophilic websites and that there is a huge market in preteen porn. Fr Fortunato now has to travel with a bodyguard.

 

 

Faith as a necessary core to family revival

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco explained that in the sexual revolution it is always women and children who suffer most. We must be prepared to say this, and not act as though boys and girls face equal risks. He pointed to a general loss of the sense of the sacred which is also reflected in the decline of marriage but warned against being drawn ourselves into hostile attitudes. Just as our worship needs to be centred on the Other, so too our love must be other-centred and include in its embrace those whose morals we dislike. Crowds can represent stereotypes but not individual people. Listening to each person's point of view is the way to tenderise hearts and bring back civility. Just as the Jews in Old Testament times felt a constant tug towards paganism, so we all feel the tug to being self-centred. To combat this, we need to rely on God's grace: we will not do it on our own. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph added that, while our dealings with others must always be loving, we do need to discuss morality, because if we fear to mention it morality itself diminishes.

The Evangelical Rev Jim Garlow spoke of daring to use religious language in the public sphere, saying that we are much too cautious. The Genesis account of the human family has a particular beauty which draws people to a new understanding of truth. He pointed out that the first two chapters begin with the creation of male and female, then of marriage and then of procreation, whereas the enemies of truth attack in reverse order: abortion, redefinition of marriage and now the non-specificity of male and female. The Rev Garlow then gave a fascinating digest of the original Hebrew of Genesis. God is neither male nor female, but we are made in his image. The male and the female can thus only partly reflect the spectrum of God's image: they need each other to reflect the whole. This explains why Genesis comments that God does not find his initial creation of a-dam, humankind, good: Adam on his own has no capacity for relationship. And so God takes from Adam what we call a rib, but in the Hebrew is a full half of Adam, and creates Eve. With the creation of the female, the male is also transformed, and the Hebrew names show this. Thus it is that the male and female fit so well together because they belong together. The Rev Garlow went on to talk about how the name of God relates to the Hebrew names for man and woman, and to the fire between them, which can be either good or bad. He explained that he has seen insights from the Bible pierce the hearts of hardened atheists, and that his organisation now runs weekly bible studies in the UN, in Congress and in Europe.

Joe Grabowski, Executive Director of the International Organisation for the Family, said that religion contributes to public policy because it works from the inside, not making laws but remaking people. Legal reform is necessary, but more important still is the remodelling of the human heart on which civilization itself depends. He added that there were many lawyers active at the time of the Fall of Rome. The Duke of Anjou emphasised that a society without religion fills with ideologies and ideologies kill. Culture reaches equilibrium when the weak are supported but the strong are allowed to strive. John Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, voiced the longing of many present for clear moral teaching from church leaders. "When our religious leaders speak out, we all wake up."

Radicalism and its international hold

Nobody present underestimated the difficulties of turning society round. The clamour at the door from the Antis, and the hundreds of journalists in the room were a living reminder that campaigning for mothers and fathers and their children is now very controversial. There were many workshops covering specific issues, too many to enumerate here, though it is worth saying that the Italians contributed a strong case for showing how family values can be profitably lived out in family-run businesses (which make up 30% of Italian employment).

The starkest reminder of the strength and radicalism of the opposition was summed up by Sharon Slater, of Family Watch International. She described how agencies at the UN are targeting children to shape the minds and hearts of the next generation. The excerpts she read from the International technical guidance on sexuality education: an evidence-informed approach produced by UNESCO and others in January 2018 were as horrifying as the WHO's earlier WHO Standards for Sex Ed in Europe 2010. She explained that International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), with its 65,000 service points in countries worldwide, is the silent partner behind all these agencies. The money it makes out of providing contraception, abortion and transgender treatments is colossal, and the younger the children the more the profit.

Tori Black, of United Families International, gave some background as to how the UN had come to be involved. When the United Nations was designed, its creators thought that there should be a more constructive way to keep peace than just by stopping bombs. It would therefore be part of the United Nations' brief also to promote a higher way of living, in which the dignity and flourishing of each person, and especially children and women, would be protected. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was originally set up in 1946 to provide food and medicine to children and mothers devastated by World War ll. In 1948 the UN Charter of Human Rights, which spoke strongly of the family as the first cell of society, was adopted. There followed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979, and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC0) in 1989. Unfortunately, these good intentions have been obstructed by radical feminists and others who have infiltrated the very organs which were originally designed to promote religious freedom and family life. Powerful bureaucrats promote their humanist ideas in universities, especially in the West, and mould the way future UN delegates think. It took decades for this subversion to take root, and we are now seeing the results.

What can be done

The Antis work globally, and to be successful the pro-family movement must do likewise. It was to facilitate this that the WCF was created and throughout the conference common problems and solutions were aired. Ignacio Arsuaga, President of CitizenGo, kicked off by saying activists should learn to work globally as well as nationally, because united efforts transcend anything that can be done by one country on its own. We have to be prepared to knock out political correctness and confront enemies however powerful - and we can expect unpleasant threats. It is better to redirect than to destroy civil structures wherever possible, taking care to elect the right people and transforming the environment of those who are in power. To do this, one needs to mobilise people, lots of people, and make the liberals fear us. And for this we need to pray, trust in God and show our truth to the world.

Levan Vasadze said that holding a Congress will itself change the host country, as WCF X had changed Georgia. He pointed to other notable turning points in 2016: the election of Donald Trump in the US, which had relieved sodomizing pressure on smaller countries, the rise of new conservative leaders in Europe, and growing opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberals. Now we must insist on replacing human rights with the rights of the human family, which will entail a reversal of our thought processes. We need to develop an affirmative narrative with the help of professionals in the field, and work hard to support whichever country is best able to take the lead in putting it into operation. Rights should always be accompanied by obligations, and theocentrism replace anthropism, so bringing God back into the centre of life. We are not seeking to become globalists, but to take pride in our own national identities while working constructively together.

Christine Vollmer of the Latin American Alliance for the Family showed how important it is that we who care about the family and the future of society also target the young, but with the correct values. Using the example of her homeland in Venezuela (and it was more poignant that I was reading her address in her absence there), she explained how she had watched a prosperous country with everything going for it tumble into chaos because true education had been neglected and the leaders had become greedy at the expense of the poor. Her own school programme Alive to the World was giving back to children the moral framework which many had lost through bad schooling and the breakdown of family and religion. It was already having remarkable results in Venezuela and was being promoted successfully in other languages worldwide and is available for translation.

Dr Marie Phillipe, Founder of SOS Détresse, volunteered to share their expertise when she pointed out the simple things which can save a child from abortion. Her organisation, which is saving 1,500 babies a year, uses a web and facebook page which appear as though they might belong to an abortion agency. The women are asked to ring in, and it is on the phone that they are guided away from aborting their baby, which they are usually contemplating under pressure from the baby's father or their own family. The young mothers know that what they are considering is wrong, and a reassuring word: "Of course you can be a mum", "they will be proud of you when they see the baby", can turn the situation, sometimes with practical help. Contraception is not an answer: 90% of women who call their helpline are on the Pill.

Sharon Slater turned to the good news at the end of her chilling report on Comprehensive Sex Education. Family Watch International have made some excellent resources available free of charge on the website: https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/sexedreport/. First of these is the just published report Re-examining the evidence for Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools 2019: A Global Research Review by Stan E Weed and Irene H Ericksen. Second, is Slater's own documentary film The War on Children: Exposing the Comprehensive Sex Education Agenda and third, also on the website, is a petition against CSE in US schools. Slater commented that families are rising up. They are seeing it at the UN, and with united action the sexual liberals can be defeated.

There were many other individuals and organisations offering their resources, of which I can mention the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has made its research available on an easily inserted flash drive, and Denise Mountenay who was promoting the acclaimed documentary film Hush, which explains the links between abortion and damage to the mother, including breast cancer, future infertility and preterm births and other serious damage to women's physical and mental health. It is available on DVD, online or to show in a cinema.

Those of us who were lucky enough to stay for the Sunday night were also given the European premiere of Unplanned, the film about Abby Johnson and her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to prolife activist. The film is amazing. It brings out abortion's horror by focusing on what the mothers endure but it manages to do this within the tenderness of a love story. It is a film will change minds on abortion while leaving behind it a warm memory. In showing it to us, the producer, Keith Mason, also gave us a challenge: that we help him build up an audience in our separate countries so that the film gets into commercial cinemas as it has in the States. He welcomes contacts and suggestions, and is prepared to begin with privately arranged group viewings. His email address is: keith@unplannedmovie.com.

[CF News] 2277.M1

Alliance for the Family showed how important it is that we who care about the family and the future of society also target the young, but with the correct values. Using the example of her homeland in Venezuela (and it was more poignant that I was reading her address in her absence there), she explained how she had watched a prosperous country with everything going for it tumble into chaos because true education had been neglected and the leaders had become greedy at the expense of the poor. Her own school programme Alive to the World was giving back to children the moral framework which many had lost through bad schooling and the breakdown of family and religion. It was already having remarkable results in Venezuela and was being promoted successfully in other languages worldwide and is available for translation.

Dr Marie Phillipe, Founder of SOS Détresse, volunteered to share their expertise when she pointed out the simple things which can save a child from abortion. Her organisation, which is saving 1,500 babies a year, uses a web and facebook page which appear as though they might belong to an abortion agency. The women are asked to ring in, and it is on the phone that they are guided away from aborting their baby, which they are usually contemplating under pressure from the baby's father or their own family. The young mothers know that what they are considering is wrong, and a reassuring word: "Of course you can be a mum", "they will be proud of you when they see the baby", can turn the situation, sometimes with practical help. Contraception is not an answer: 90% of women who call their helpline are on the Pill.

Sharon Slater turned to the good news at the end of her chilling report on Comprehensive Sex Education. Family Watch International have made some excellent resources available free of charge on the website: https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/sexedreport/. First of these is the just published report Re-examining the evidence for Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools 2019: A Global Research Review by Stan E Weed and Irene H Ericksen. Second, is Slater's own documentary film The War on Children: Exposing the Comprehensive Sex Education Agenda and third, also on the website, is a petition against CSE in US schools. Slater commented that families are rising up. They are seeing it at the UN, and with united action the sexual liberals can be defeated.

There were many other individuals and organisations offering their resources, of which I can mention the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has made its research available on an easily inserted flash drive, and Denise Mountenay who was promoting the acclaimed documentary film Hush, which explains the links between abortion and damage to the mother, including breast cancer, future infertility and preterm births and other serious damage to women's physical and mental health. It is available on DVD, online or to show in a cinema.

Those of us who were lucky enough to stay for the Sunday night were also given the European premiere of Unplanned, the film about Abby Johnson and her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to prolife activist. The film is amazing. It brings out abortion's horror by focusing on what the mothers endure but it manages to do this within the tenderness of a love story. It is a film will change minds on abortion while leaving behind it a warm memory. In showing it to us, the producer, Keith Mason, also gave us a challenge: that we help him build up an audience in our separate countries so that the film gets into commercial cinemas as it has in the States. He welcomes contacts and suggestions, and is prepared to begin with privately arranged group viewings. His email address is: keith@unplannedmovie.com.

[CF News] 2277.M1

eforehand. They objected to the accusation that the Congress had gathered in hate and was attached to far right politics. They also protested their freedom to speak out in favour of marriage and large families regardless of their personal lives. (Salvini is divorced and Gardini the mother of a single child born out of wedlock - the Antis cannot cope with pro-family ministers who have irregular family profiles themselves). "I have come straight from the ironing," declared the glamorous Gardini, targeting yet another lie, that profamily politics keep women from careers, whereas in fact good mothers bring invaluable experience to the workplace. "Family policy is medieval?" challenged a speaker from the Netherlands, "No, it is much older than that: it dates from the beginning of history."

The interrelationship between sexual licence and violence was a theme noted by several speakers. One of the most moving was from Don Fortunato Di Noto who spoke of the 85 million children who are currently victims, of sexual licence, trafficked, enslaved and aborted. He has been working among children for 30 years from his base in Sicily, which he helped in 1997 to become the first country in the world to have a Parliamentary motion against porn. He lamented that there are now some 3 million paedophilic websites and that there is a huge market in preteen porn. Fr Fortunato now has to travel with a bodyguard.

 

 

Faith as a necessary core to family revival

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco explained that in the sexual revolution it is always women and children who suffer most. We must be prepared to say this, and not act as though boys and girls face equal risks. He pointed to a general loss of the sense of the sacred which is also reflected in the decline of marriage but warned against being drawn ourselves into hostile attitudes. Just as our worship needs to be centred on the Other, so too our love must be other-centred and include in its embrace those whose morals we dislike. Crowds can represent stereotypes but not individual people. Listening to each person's point of view is the way to tenderise hearts and bring back civility. Just as the Jews in Old Testament times felt a constant tug towards paganism, so we all feel the tug to being self-centred. To combat this, we need to rely on God's grace: we will not do it on our own. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph added that, while our dealings with others must always be loving, we do need to discuss morality, because if we fear to mention it morality itself diminishes.

The Evangelical Rev Jim Garlow spoke of daring to use religious language in the public sphere, saying that we are much too cautious. The Genesis account of the human family has a particular beauty which draws people to a new understanding of truth. He pointed out that the first two chapters begin with the creation of male and female, then of marriage and then of procreation, whereas the enemies of truth attack in reverse order: abortion, redefinition of marriage and now the non-specificity of male and female. The Rev Garlow then gave a fascinating digest of the original Hebrew of Genesis. God is neither male nor female, but we are made in his image. The male and the female can thus only partly reflect the spectrum of God's image: they need each other to reflect the whole. This explains why Genesis comments that God does not find his initial creation of a-dam, humankind, good: Adam on his own has no capacity for relationship. And so God takes from Adam what we call a rib, but in the Hebrew is a full half of Adam, and creates Eve. With the creation of the female, the male is also transformed, and the Hebrew names show this. Thus it is that the male and female fit so well together because they belong together. The Rev Garlow went on to talk about how the name of God relates to the Hebrew names for man and woman, and to the fire between them, which can be either good or bad. He explained that he has seen insights from the Bible pierce the hearts of hardened atheists, and that his organisation now runs weekly bible studies in the UN, in Congress and in Europe.

Joe Grabowski, Executive Director of the International Organisation for the Family, said that religion contributes to public policy because it works from the inside, not making laws but remaking people. Legal reform is necessary, but more important still is the remodelling of the human heart on which civilization itself depends. He added that there were many lawyers active at the time of the Fall of Rome. The Duke of Anjou emphasised that a society without religion fills with ideologies and ideologies kill. Culture reaches equilibrium when the weak are supported but the strong are allowed to strive. John Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, voiced the longing of many present for clear moral teaching from church leaders. "When our religious leaders speak out, we all wake up."

Radicalism and its international hold

Nobody present underestimated the difficulties of turning society round. The clamour at the door from the Antis, and the hundreds of journalists in the room were a living reminder that campaigning for mothers and fathers and their children is now very controversial. There were many workshops covering specific issues, too many to enumerate here, though it is worth saying that the Italians contributed a strong case for showing how family values can be profitably lived out in family-run businesses (which make up 30% of Italian employment).

The starkest reminder of the strength and radicalism of the opposition was summed up by Sharon Slater, of Family Watch International. She described how agencies at the UN are targeting children to shape the minds and hearts of the next generation. The excerpts she read from the International technical guidance on sexuality education: an evidence-informed approach produced by UNESCO and others in January 2018 were as horrifying as the WHO's earlier WHO Standards for Sex Ed in Europe 2010. She explained that International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), with its 65,000 service points in countries worldwide, is the silent partner behind all these agencies. The money it makes out of providing contraception, abortion and transgender treatments is colossal, and the younger the children the more the profit.

Tori Black, of United Families International, gave some background as to how the UN had come to be involved. When the United Nations was designed, its creators thought that there should be a more constructive way to keep peace than just by stopping bombs. It would therefore be part of the United Nations' brief also to promote a higher way of living, in which the dignity and flourishing of each person, and especially children and women, would be protected. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was originally set up in 1946 to provide food and medicine to children and mothers devastated by World War ll. In 1948 the UN Charter of Human Rights, which spoke strongly of the family as the first cell of society, was adopted. There followed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979, and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC0) in 1989. Unfortunately, these good intentions have been obstructed by radical feminists and others who have infiltrated the very organs which were originally designed to promote religious freedom and family life. Powerful bureaucrats promote their humanist ideas in universities, especially in the West, and mould the way future UN delegates think. It took decades for this subversion to take root, and we are now seeing the results.

What can be done

The Antis work globally, and to be successful the pro-family movement must do likewise. It was to facilitate this that the WCF was created and throughout the conference common problems and solutions were aired. Ignacio Arsuaga, President of CitizenGo, kicked off by saying activists should learn to work globally as well as nationally, because united efforts transcend anything that can be done by one country on its own. We have to be prepared to knock out political correctness and confront enemies however powerful - and we can expect unpleasant threats. It is better to redirect than to destroy civil structures wherever possible, taking care to elect the right people and transforming the environment of those who are in power. To do this, one needs to mobilise people, lots of people, and make the liberals fear us. And for this we need to pray, trust in God and show our truth to the world.

Levan Vasadze said that holding a Congress will itself change the host country, as WCF X had changed Georgia. He pointed to other notable turning points in 2016: the election of Donald Trump in the US, which had relieved sodomizing pressure on smaller countries, the rise of new conservative leaders in Europe, and growing opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberals. Now we must insist on replacing human rights with the rights of the human family, which will entail a reversal of our thought processes. We need to develop an affirmative narrative with the help of professionals in the field, and work hard to support whichever country is best able to take the lead in putting it into operation. Rights should always be accompanied by obligations, and theocentrism replace anthropism, so bringing God back into the centre of life. We are not seeking to become globalists, but to take pride in our own national identities while working constructively together.

Christine Vollmer of the Latin American Alliance for the Family showed how important it is that we who care about the family and the future of society also target the young, but with the correct values. Using the example of her homeland in Venezuela (and it was more poignant that I was reading her address in her absence there), she explained how she had watched a prosperous country with everything going for it tumble into chaos because true education had been neglected and the leaders had become greedy at the expense of the poor. Her own school programme Alive to the World was giving back to children the moral framework which many had lost through bad schooling and the breakdown of family and religion. It was already having remarkable results in Venezuela and was being promoted successfully in other languages worldwide and is available for translation.

Dr Marie Phillipe, Founder of SOS Détresse, volunteered to share their expertise when she pointed out the simple things which can save a child from abortion. Her organisation, which is saving 1,500 babies a year, uses a web and facebook page which appear as though they might belong to an abortion agency. The women are asked to ring in, and it is on the phone that they are guided away from aborting their baby, which they are usually contemplating under pressure from the baby's father or their own family. The young mothers know that what they are considering is wrong, and a reassuring word: "Of course you can be a mum", "they will be proud of you when they see the baby", can turn the situation, sometimes with practical help. Contraception is not an answer: 90% of women who call their helpline are on the Pill.

Sharon Slater turned to the good news at the end of her chilling report on Comprehensive Sex Education. Family Watch International have made some excellent resources available free of charge on the website: https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/sexedreport/. First of these is the just published report Re-examining the evidence for Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools 2019: A Global Research Review by Stan E Weed and Irene H Ericksen. Second, is Slater's own documentary film The War on Children: Exposing the Comprehensive Sex Education Agenda and third, also on the website, is a petition against CSE in US schools. Slater commented that families are rising up. They are seeing it at the UN, and with united action the sexual liberals can be defeated.

There were many other individuals and organisations offering their resources, of which I can mention the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has made its research available on an easily inserted flash drive, and Denise Mountenay who was promoting the acclaimed documentary film Hush, which explains the links between abortion and damage to the mother, including breast cancer, future infertility and preterm births and other serious damage to women's physical and mental health. It is available on DVD, online or to show in a cinema.

Those of us who were lucky enough to stay for the Sunday night were also given the European premiere of Unplanned, the film about Abby Johnson and her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to prolife activist. The film is amazing. It brings out abortion's horror by focusing on what the mothers endure but it manages to do this within the tenderness of a love story. It is a film will change minds on abortion while leaving behind it a warm memory. In showing it to us, the producer, Keith Mason, also gave us a challenge: that we help him build up an audience in our separate countries so that the film gets into commercial cinemas as it has in the States. He welcomes contacts and suggestions, and is prepared to begin with privately arranged group viewings. His email address is: keith@unplannedmovie.com.

[CF News] 2277.M1

9.

The claim was strikingly made by Steve Turley early in the C

World Congress of Families, Verona

 

LOUISE KIRK, UK Co-ordinator for Alive to the World, reports for CF NEWS - Family campaigners are on the winning side. This was the message from the Thirteenth World Congress of Families (WCF) XIII, held in Verona under the chairmanship of Antonio Brandi between 29-31 March, 2019.

The claim was strikingly made by Steve Turley early in the Congress. Turley began by showing that, despite the contrary environment in which most fighters for the family work, the pointers to a different future are already there. Forward looking scholars write of the "post secular age" to take account of the biggest worldwide revival of religious practice the world has ever seen. And with religious practice comes greater interest in the family and larger numbers of children: in the US, religious women are 30% more fertile than secular ones. Even within two generations the political effects will be seen, with postmodernists failing to reproduce themselves at the rate of people of faith in many countries of the world - France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, were examples, while Georgia, which hosted WCFXI in 2016, has swung from having one of the lowest to one of the highest fertility rates in Eastern Europe.

Not only are we winning, but the secular liberals are panicking and there is nothing that they can do to stop the change in culture that will come with these demographics.

Another tangible sign of progress was our meeting hall. This was in a 17th Century palazzo in the centre of Verona given to the World Congress by the Mayor of Verona, free of charge. The World Congress movement is now supported by leading politicians in host countries. In Verona we were addressed by Matteo Salvini, the Vice Premier, by Elisabetta Gardini, MEP and Leader of Forza Italia in the Eurropean Parliament, and by the Ministers for Education and for Family and Disabilities. Massimo Gandolfini, Founder of the Family Day, remarked that just four years before holding such a Congress in Italy would have been a pipedream.

Leading examples from other countries

Katalin Novak, Hungarian Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, explained how the Budapest WCF of 2017 had fed into government policies. Her speech outlined eye-watering incentives for young people to marry and have children, including a €35,000 unallocated loan which becomes non-reimbursable with a third child, and a €35,000 housing grant payable to the mother in the first trimester of her first pregnancy. The Hungarians have looked at the typical hurdles modern couples face in marrying and having families and have targeted assistance accordingly, producing help e.g. for childcare and even for 7-seater cars. Mothers of four children are excused income tax for the rest of their lives. What is more, their measures are beginning to bite. In the last few years, the number of marriages has begun to increase, divorces diminish and the fertility rate to rise. Levan Vazadze, President of the Tbilisi WCF of 2016, spoke of similar improvements in Georgia.

Eastern Europeans in general had a strong presence at the Congress. The Moldovans, hosts of WCF XII in 2018, handed over the baton to the Italians in the opening ceremonies, while the Russians had a delegation of some twenty strong. Zeljka Markic of Croatia explained in a much acclaimed speech at the end of the Congress why the profamily fight strikes such a chord in former communist countries. "We in Croatia experienced three totalitarian states, and we do not want another. The state must protect the rights of women to work and also to have children. We have a right to our own political representatives who fight for our cause. We in Croatia are a small people. Our last fight for freedom was only 25 years ago, and at such a high price. Many sacrificed their lives for freedom, and now we want to be free, with our own values."

A newcomer to the scene was Brazil. The country's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has reversed the country's anti-life politics and declared that in future all public policy must be seen through the prism of the family. Dr Angela Vidal Gandra in the newly created role of First Secretary for the Family, gave a spirited speech pointing to the direct connection between household and public economics: it makes sense to support family life because where families thrive, the country and human rights prosper too. Vidal Gandra pointed out that the government has been elected to tackle Brazil's crisis of corruption and by promoting strong family life they are creating a forge for the ethical values which the country so badly needs. Married families work better and become more engaged with the common good. The Brazilian government recognises parents as primary educators, is encouraging them to talk to their own children about sexuality, and is about to give them freedom to home school. It is currently studying how to take better care of the old and infirm, and to strengthen intergenerational bonds. Another challenge is to find the best ways to help women put their families first while being free also to work outside the home.

Battling the opposition

If the tone of the Congress was upbeat, the opposition was equally strong. We pushed our way into the Congress building through police guards, and journalists circled round the "antis" outside, who formed themselves into a large demonstration on the Saturday when the Italian dignitaries addressed us. Salvini and his colleagues' speeches were pitched as much to those outside the hall as to us within, loudly protesting the fake news and downright lies with which they had been harassed for weeks and months beforehand. They objected to the accusation that the Congress had gathered in hate and was attached to far right politics. They also protested their freedom to speak out in favour of marriage and large families regardless of their personal lives. (Salvini is divorced and Gardini the mother of a single child born out of wedlock - the Antis cannot cope with pro-family ministers who have irregular family profiles themselves). "I have come straight from the ironing," declared the glamorous Gardini, targeting yet another lie, that profamily politics keep women from careers, whereas in fact good mothers bring invaluable experience to the workplace. "Family policy is medieval?" challenged a speaker from the Netherlands, "No, it is much older than that: it dates from the beginning of history."

The interrelationship between sexual licence and violence was a theme noted by several speakers. One of the most moving was from Don Fortunato Di Noto who spoke of the 85 million children who are currently victims, of sexual licence, trafficked, enslaved and aborted. He has been working among children for 30 years from his base in Sicily, which he helped in 1997 to become the first country in the world to have a Parliamentary motion against porn. He lamented that there are now some 3 million paedophilic websites and that there is a huge market in preteen porn. Fr Fortunato now has to travel with a bodyguard.

 

 

Faith as a necessary core to family revival

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco explained that in the sexual revolution it is always women and children who suffer most. We must be prepared to say this, and not act as though boys and girls face equal risks. He pointed to a general loss of the sense of the sacred which is a

World Congress of Families, Verona

 

LOUISE KIRK, UK Co-ordinator for Alive to the World, reports for CF NEWS - Family campaigners are on the winning side. This was the message from the Thirteenth World Congress of Families (WCF) XIII, held in Verona under the chairmanship of Antonio Brandi between 29-31 March, 2019.

The claim was strikingly made by Steve Turley early in the Congress. Turley began by showing that, despite the contrary environment in which most fighters for the family work, the pointers to a different future are already there. Forward looking scholars write of the "post secular age" to take account of the biggest worldwide revival of religious practice the world has ever seen. And with religious practice comes greater interest in the family and larger numbers of children: in the US, religious women are 30% more fertile than secular ones. Even within two generations the political effects will be seen, with postmodernists failing to reproduce themselves at the rate of people of faith in many countries of the world - France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, were examples, while Georgia, which hosted WCFXI in 2016, has swung from having one of the lowest to one of the highest fertility rates in Eastern Europe.

Not only are we winning, but the secular liberals are panicking and there is nothing that they can do to stop the change in culture that will come with these demographics.

Another tangible sign of progress was our meeting hall. This was in a 17th Century palazzo in the centre of Verona given to the World Congress by the Mayor of Verona, free of charge. The World Congress movement is now supported by leading politicians in host countries. In Verona we were addressed by Matteo Salvini, the Vice Premier, by Elisabetta Gardini, MEP and Leader of Forza Italia in the Eurropean Parliament, and by the Ministers for Education and for Family and Disabilities. Massimo Gandolfini, Founder of the Family Day, remarked that just four years before holding such a Congress in Italy would have been a pipedream.

Leading examples from other countries

Katalin Novak, Hungarian Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, explained how the Budapest WCF of 2017 had fed into government policies. Her speech outlined eye-watering incentives for young people to marry and have children, including a €35,000 unallocated loan which becomes non-reimbursable with a third child, and a €35,000 housing grant payable to the mother in the first trimester of her first pregnancy. The Hungarians have looked at the typical hurdles modern couples face in marrying and having families and have targeted assistance accordingly, producing help e.g. for childcare and even for 7-seater cars. Mothers of four children are excused income tax for the rest of their lives. What is more, their measures are beginning to bite. In the last few years, the number of marriages has begun to increase, divorces diminish and the fertility rate to rise. Levan Vazadze, President of the Tbilisi WCF of 2016, spoke of similar improvements in Georgia.

Eastern Europeans in general had a strong presence at the Congress. The Moldovans, hosts of WCF XII in 2018, handed over the baton to the Italians in the opening ceremonies, while the Russians had a delegation of some twenty strong. Zeljka Markic of Croatia explained in a much acclaimed speech at the end of the Congress why the profamily fight strikes such a chord in former communist countries. "We in Croatia experienced three totalitarian states, and we do not want another. The state must protect the rights of women to work and also to have children. We have a right to our own political representatives who fight for our cause. We in Croatia are a small people. Our last fight for freedom was only 25 years ago, and at such a high price. Many sacrificed their lives for freedom, and now we want to be free, with our own values."

A newcomer to the scene was Brazil. The country's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has reversed the country's anti-life politics and declared that in future all public policy must be seen through the prism of the family. Dr Angela Vidal Gandra in the newly created role of First Secretary for the Family, gave a spirited speech pointing to the direct connection between household and public economics: it makes sense to support family life because where families thrive, the country and human rights prosper too. Vidal Gandra pointed out that the government has been elected to tackle Brazil's crisis of corruption and by promoting strong family life they are creating a forge for the ethical values which the country so badly needs. Married families work better and become more engaged with the common good. The Brazilian government recognises parents as primary educators, is encouraging them to talk to their own children about sexuality, and is about to give them freedom to home school. It is currently studying how to take better care of the old and infirm, and to strengthen intergenerational bonds. Another challenge is to find the best ways to help women put their families first while being free also to work outside the home.

Battling the opposition

If the tone of the Congress was upbeat, the opposition was equally strong. We pushed our way into the Congress building through police guards, and journalists circled round the "antis" outside, who formed themselves into a large demonstration on the Saturday when the Italian dignitaries addressed us. Salvini and his colleagues' speeches were pitched as much to those outside the hall as to us within, loudly protesting the fake news and downright lies with which they had been harassed for weeks and months beforehand. They objected to the accusation that the Congress had gathered in hate and was attached to far right politics. They also protested their freedom to speak out in favour of marriage and large families regardless of their personal lives. (Salvini is divorced and Gardini the mother of a single child born out of wedlock - the Antis cannot cope with pro-family ministers who have irregular family profiles themselves). "I have come straight from the ironing," declared the glamorous Gardini, targeting yet another lie, that profamily politics keep women from careers, whereas in fact good mothers bring invaluable experience to the workplace. "Family policy is medieval?" challenged a speaker from the Netherlands, "No, it is much older than that: it dates from the beginning of history."

The interrelationship between sexual licence and violence was a theme noted by several speakers. One of the most moving was from Don Fortunato Di Noto who spoke of the 85 million children who are currently victims, of sexual licence, trafficked, enslaved and aborted. He has been working among children for 30 years from his base in Sicily, which he helped in 1997 to become the first country in the world to have a Parliamentary motion against porn. He lamented that there are now some 3 million paedophilic websites and that there is a huge market in preteen porn. Fr Fortunato now has to travel with a bodyguard.

 

 

Faith as a necessary core to family revival

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco explained that in the sexual revolution it is always women and children who suffer most. We must be prepared to say this, and not act as though boys and girls face equal risks. He pointed to a general loss of the sense of the sacred which is also reflected in the decline of marriage but warned against being drawn ourselves into hostile attitudes. Just as our worship needs to be centred on the Other, so too our love must be other-centred and include in its embrace those whose morals we dislike. Crowds can represent stereotypes but not individual people. Listening to each person's point of view is the way to tenderise hearts and bring back civility. Just as the Jews in Old Testament times felt a constant tug towards paganism, so we all feel the tug to being self-centred. To combat this, we need to rely on God's grace: we will not do it on our own. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph added that, while our dealings with others must always be loving, we do need to discuss morality, because if we fear to mention it morality itself diminishes.

The Evangelical Rev Jim Garlow spoke of daring to use religious language in the public sphere, saying that we are much too cautious. The Genesis account of the human family has a particular beauty which draws people to a new understanding of truth. He pointed out that the first two chapters begin with the creation of male and female, then of marriage and then of procreation, whereas the enemies of truth attack in reverse order: abortion, redefinition of marriage and now the non-specificity of male and female. The Rev Garlow then gave a fascinating digest of the original Hebrew of Genesis. God is neither male nor female, but we are made in his image. The male and the female can thus only partly reflect the spectrum of God's image: they need each other to reflect the whole. This explains why Genesis comments that God does not find his initial creation of a-dam, humankind, good: Adam on his own has no capacity for relationship. And so God takes from Adam what we call a rib, but in the Hebrew is a full half of Adam, and creates Eve. With the creation of the female, the male is also transformed, and the Hebrew names show this. Thus it is that the male and female fit so well together because they belong together. The Rev Garlow went on to talk about how the name of God relates to the Hebrew names for man and woman, and to the fire between them, which can be either good or bad. He explained that he has seen insights from the Bible pierce the hearts of hardened atheists, and that his organisation now runs weekly bible studies in the UN, in Congress and in Europe.

Joe Grabowski, Executive Director of the International Organisation for the Family, said that religion contributes to public policy because it works from the inside, not making laws but remaking people. Legal reform is necessary, but more important still is the remodelling of the human heart on which civilization itself depends. He added that there were many lawyers active at the time of the Fall of Rome. The Duke of Anjou emphasised that a society without religion fills with ideologies and ideologies kill. Culture reaches equilibrium when the weak are supported but the strong are allowed to strive. John Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, voiced the longing of many present for clear moral teaching from church leaders. "When our religious leaders speak out, we all wake up."

Radicalism and its international hold

Nobody present underestimated the difficulties of turning society round. The clamour at the door from the Antis, and the hundreds of journalists in the room were a living reminder that campaigning for mothers and fathers and their children is now very controversial. There were many workshops covering specific issues, too many to enumerate here, though it is worth saying that the Italians contributed a strong case for showing how family values can be profitably lived out in family-run businesses (which make up 30% of Italian employment).

The starkest reminder of the strength and radicalism of the opposition was summed up by Sharon Slater, of Family Watch International. She described how agencies at the UN are targeting children to shape the minds and hearts of the next generation. The excerpts she read from the International technical guidance on sexuality education: an evidence-informed approach produced by UNESCO and others in January 2018 were as horrifying as the WHO's earlier WHO Standards for Sex Ed in Europe 2010. She explained that International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), with its 65,000 service points in countries worldwide, is the silent partner behind all these agencies. The money it makes out of providing contraception, abortion and transgender treatments is colossal, and the younger the children the more the profit.

Tori Black, of United Families International, gave some background as to how the UN had come to be involved. When the United Nations was designed, its creators thought that there should be a more constructive way to keep peace than just by stopping bombs. It would therefore be part of the United Nations' brief also to promote a higher way of living, in which the dignity and flourishing of each person, and especially children and women, would be protected. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was originally set up in 1946 to provide food and medicine to children and mothers devastated by World War ll. In 1948 the UN Charter of Human Rights, which spoke strongly of the family as the first cell of society, was adopted. There followed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979, and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC0) in 1989. Unfortunately, these good intentions have been obstructed by radical feminists and others who have infiltrated the very organs which were originally designed to promote religious freedom and family life. Powerful bureaucrats promote their humanist ideas in universities, especially in the West, and mould the way future UN delegates think. It took decades for this subversion to take root, and we are now seeing the results.

What can be done

The Antis work globally, and to be successful the pro-family movement must do likewise. It was to facilitate this that the WCF was created and throughout the conference common problems and solutions were aired. Ignacio Arsuaga, President of CitizenGo, kicked off by saying activists should learn to work globally as well as nationally, because united efforts transcend anything that can be done by one country on its own. We have to be prepared to knock out political correctness and confront enemies however powerful - and we can expect unpleasant threats. It is better to redirect than to destroy civil structures wherever possible, taking care to elect the right people and transforming the environment of those who are in power. To do this, one needs to mobilise people, lots of people, and make the liberals fear us. And for this we need to pray, trust in God and show our truth to the world.

Levan Vasadze said that holding a Congress will itself change the host country, as WCF X had changed Georgia. He pointed to other notable turning points in 2016: the election of Donald Trump in the US, which had relieved sodomizing pressure on smaller countries, the rise of new conservative leaders in Europe, and growing opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberals. Now we must insist on replacing human rights with the rights of the human family, which will entail a reversal of our thought processes. We need to develop an affirmative narrative with the help of professionals in the field, and work hard to support whichever country is best able to take the lead in putting it into operation. Rights should always be accompanied by obligations, and theocentrism replace anthropism, so bringing God back into the centre of life. We are not seeking to become globalists, but to take pride in our own national identities while working constructively together.

Christine Vollmer of the Latin American Alliance for the Family showed how important it is that we who care about the family and the future of society also target the young, but with the correct values. Using the example of her homeland in Venezuela (and it was more poignant that I was reading her address in her absence there), she explained how she had watched a prosperous country with everything going for it tumble into chaos because true education had been neglected and the leaders had become greedy at the expense of the poor. Her own school programme Alive to the World was giving back to children the moral framework which many had lost through bad schooling and the breakdown of family and religion. It was already having remarkable results in Venezuela and was being promoted successfully in other languages worldwide and is available for translation.

Dr Marie Phillipe, Founder of SOS Détresse, volunteered to share their expertise when she pointed out the simple things which can save a child from abortion. Her organisation, which is saving 1,500 babies a year, uses a web and facebook page which appear as though they might belong to an abortion agency. The women are asked to ring in, and it is on the phone that they are guided away from aborting their baby, which they are usually contemplating under pressure from the baby's father or their own family. The young mothers know that what they are considering is wrong, and a reassuring word: "Of course you can be a mum", "they will be proud of you when they see the baby", can turn the situation, sometimes with practical help. Contraception is not an answer: 90% of women who call their helpline are on the Pill.

Sharon Slater turned to the good news at the end of her chilling report on Comprehensive Sex Education. Family Watch International have made some excellent resources available free of charge on the website: https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/sexedreport/. First of these is the just published report Re-examining the evidence for Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools 2019: A Global Research Review by Stan E Weed and Irene H Ericksen. Second, is Slater's own documentary film The War on Children: Exposing the Comprehensive Sex Education Agenda and third, also on the website, is a petition against CSE in US schools. Slater commented that families are rising up. They are seeing it at the UN, and with united action the sexual liberals can be defeated.

There were many other individuals and organisations offering their resources, of which I can mention the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has made its research available on an easily inserted flash drive, and Denise Mountenay who was promoting the acclaimed documentary film Hush, which explains the links between abortion and damage to the mother, including breast cancer, future infertility and preterm births and other serious damage to women's physical and mental health. It is available on DVD, online or to show in a cinema.

Those of us who were lucky enough to stay for the Sunday night were also given the European premiere of Unplanned, the film about Abby Johnson and her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to prolife activist. The film is amazing. It brings out abortion's horror by focusing on what the mothers endure but it manages to do this within the tenderness of a love story. It is a film will change minds on abortion while leaving behind it a warm memory. In showing it to us, the producer, Keith Mason, also gave us a challenge: that we help him build up an audience in our separate countries so that the film gets into commercial cinemas as it has in the States. He welcomes contacts and suggestions, and is prepared to begin with privately arranged group viewings. His email address is: keith@unplannedmovie.com.

[CF News] 2277.M1

lso reflected in the decline of marriage but warned against being drawn ourselves into hostile attitudes. Just as our worship needs to be centred on the Other, so too our love must be other-centred and include in its embrace those whose morals we dislike. Crowds can represent stereotypes but not individual people. Listening to each person's point of view is the way to tenderise hearts and bring back civility. Just as the Jews in Old Testament times felt a constant tug towards paganism, so we all feel the tug to being self-centred. To combat this, we need to rely on God's grace: we will not do it on our own. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph added that, while our dealings with others must always be loving, we do need to discuss morality, because if we fear to mention it morality itself diminishes.

The Evangelical Rev Jim Garlow spoke of daring to use religious language in the public sphere, saying that we are much too cautious. The Genesis account of the human family has a particular beauty which draws people to a new understanding of truth. He pointed out that the first two chapters begin with the creation of male and female, then of marriage and then of procreation, whereas the enemies of truth attack in reverse order: abortion, redefinition of marriage and now the non-specificity of male and female. The Rev Garlow then gave a fascinating digest of the original Hebrew of Genesis. God is neither male nor female, but we are made in his image. The male and the female can thus only partly reflect the spectrum of God's image: they need each other to reflect the whole. This explains why Genesis comments that God does not find his initial creation of a-dam, humankind, good: Adam on his own has no capacity for relationship. And so God takes from Adam what we call a rib, but in the Hebrew is a full half of Adam, and creates Eve. With the creation of the female, the male is also transformed, and the Hebrew names show this. Thus it is that the male and female fit so well together because they belong together. The Rev Garlow went on to talk about how the name of God relates to the Hebrew names for man and woman, and to the fire between them, which can be either good or bad. He explained that he has seen insights from the Bible pierce the hearts of hardened atheists, and that his organisation now runs weekly bible studies in the UN, in Congress and in Europe.

Joe Grabowski, Executive Director of the International Organisation for the Family, said that religion contributes to public policy because it works from the inside, not making laws but remaking people. Legal reform is necessary, but more important still is the remodelling of the human heart on which civilization itself depends. He added that there were many lawyers active at the time of the Fall of Rome. The Duke of Anjou emphasised that a society without religion fills with ideologies and ideologies kill. Culture reaches equilibrium when the weak are supported but the strong are allowed to strive. John Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, voiced the longing of many present for clear moral teaching from church leaders. "When our religious leaders speak out, we all wake up."

Radicalism and its international hold

Nobody present underestimated the difficulties of turning society round. The clamour at the door from the Antis, and the hundreds of journalists in the room were a living reminder that campaigning for mothers and fathers and their children is now very controversial. There were many workshops covering specific issues, too many to enumerate here, though it is worth saying that the Italians contributed a strong case for showing how family values can be profitably lived out in family-run businesses (which make up 30% of Italian employment).

The starkest reminder of the strength and radicalism of the opposition was summed up by Sharon Slater, of Family Watch International. She described how agencies at the UN are targeting children to shape the minds and hearts of the next generation. The excerpts she read from the International technical guidance on sexuality education: an evidence-informed approach produced by UNESCO and others in January 2018 were as horrifying as the WHO's earlier WHO Standards for Sex Ed in Europe 2010. She explained that International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), with its 65,000 service points in countries worldwide, is the silent partner behind all these agencies. The money it makes out of providing contraception, abortion and transgender treatments is colossal, and the younger the children the more the profit.

Tori Black, of United Families International, gave some background as to how the UN had come to be involved. When the United Nations was designed, its creators thought that there should be a more constructive way to keep peace than just by stopping bombs. It would therefore be part of the United Nations' brief also to promote a higher way of living, in which the dignity and flourishing of each person, and especially children and women, would be protected. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was originally set up in 1946 to provide food and medicine to children and mothers devastated by World War ll. In 1948 the UN Charter of Human Rights, which spoke strongly of the family as the first cell of society, was adopted. There followed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979, and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC0) in 1989. Unfortunately, these good intentions have been obstructed by radical feminists and others who have infiltrated the very organs which were originally designed to promote religious freedom and family life. Powerful bureaucrats promote their humanist ideas in universities, especially in the West, and mould the way future UN delegates think. It took decades for this subversion to take root, and we are now seeing the results.

What can be done

The Antis work globally, and to be successful the pro-family movement must do likewise. It was to facilitate this that the WCF was created and throughout the conference common problems and solutions were aired. Ignacio Arsuaga, President of CitizenGo, kicked off by saying activists should learn to work globally as well as nationally, because united efforts transcend anything that can be done by one country on its own. We have to be prepared to knock out political correctness and confront enemies however powerful - and we can expect unpleasant threats. It is better to redirect than to destroy civil structures wherever possible, taking care to elect the right people and transforming the environment of those who are in power. To do this, one needs to mobilise people, lots of people, and make the liberals fear us. And for this we need to pray, trust in God and show our truth to the world.

Levan Vasadze said that holding a Congress will itself change the host country, as WCF X had changed Georgia. He pointed to other notable turning points in 2016: the election of Donald Trump in the US, which had relieved sodomizing pressure on smaller countries, the rise of new conservative leaders in Europe, and growing opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberals. Now we must insist on replacing human rights with the rights of the human family, which will entail a reversal of our thought processes. We need to develop an affirmative narrative with the help of professionals in the field, and work hard to support whichever country is best able to take the lead in putting it into operation. Rights should always be accompanied by obligations, and theocentrism replace anthropism, so bringing God back into the centre of life. We are not seeking to become globalists, but to take pride in our own national identities while working constructively together.

Christine Vollmer of the Latin American Alliance for the Family showed how important it is that we who care about the family and the future of society also target the young, but with the correct values. Using the example of her homeland in Venezuela (and it was more poignant that I was reading her address in her absence there), she explained how she had watched a prosperous country with everything going for it tumble into chaos because true education had been neglected and the leaders had become greedy at the expense of the poor. Her own school programme Alive to the World was giving back to children the moral framework which many had lost through bad schooling and the breakdown of family and religion. It was already having remarkable results in Venezuela and was being promoted successfully in other languages worldwide and is available for translation.

Dr Marie Phillipe, Founder of SOS Détresse, volunteered to share their expertise when she pointed out the simple things which can save a child from abortion. Her organisation, which is saving 1,500 babies a year, uses a web and facebook page which appear as though they might belong to an abortio

World Congress of Families, Verona

 

LOUISE KIRK, UK Co-ordinator for Alive to the World, reports for CF NEWS - Family campaigners are on the winning side. This was the message from the Thirteenth World Congress of Families (WCF) XIII, held in Verona under the chairmanship of Antonio Brandi between 29-31 March, 2019.

The claim was strikingly made by Steve Turley early in the Congress. Turley began by showing that, despite the contrary environment in which most fighters for the family work, the pointers to a different future are already there. Forward looking scholars write of the "post secular age" to take account of the biggest worldwide revival of religious practice the world has ever seen. And with religious practice comes greater interest in the family and larger numbers of children: in the US, religious women are 30% more fertile than secular ones. Even within two generations the political effects will be seen, with postmodernists failing to reproduce themselves at the rate of people of faith in many countries of the world - France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, were examples, while Georgia, which hosted WCFXI in 2016, has swung from having one of the lowest to one of the highest fertility rates in Eastern Europe.

Not only are we winning, but the secular liberals are panicking and there is nothing that they can do to stop the change in culture that will come with these demographics.

Another tangible sign of progress was our meeting hall. This was in a 17th Century palazzo in the centre of Verona given to the World Congress by the Mayor of Verona, free of charge. The World Congress movement is now supported by leading politicians in host countries. In Verona we were addressed by Matteo Salvini, the Vice Premier, by Elisabetta Gardini, MEP and Leader of Forza Italia in the Eurropean Parliament, and by the Ministers for Education and for Family and Disabilities. Massimo Gandolfini, Founder of the Family Day, remarked that just four years before holding such a Congress in Italy would have been a pipedream.

Leading examples from other countries

Katalin Novak, Hungarian Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, explained how the Budapest WCF of 2017 had fed into government policies. Her speech outlined eye-watering incentives for young people to marry and have children, including a €35,000 unallocated loan which becomes non-reimbursable with a third child, and a €35,000 housing grant payable to the mother in the first trimester of her first pregnancy. The Hungarians have looked at the typical hurdles modern couples face in marrying and having families and have targeted assistance accordingly, producing help e.g. for childcare and even for 7-seater cars. Mothers of four children are excused income tax for the rest of their lives. What is more, their measures are beginning to bite. In the last few years, the number of marriages has begun to increase, divorces diminish and the fertility rate to rise. Levan Vazadze, President of the Tbilisi WCF of 2016, spoke of similar improvements in Georgia.

Eastern Europeans in general had a strong presence at the Congress. The Moldovans, hosts of WCF XII in 2018, handed over the baton to the Italians in the opening ceremonies, while the Russians had a delegation of some twenty strong. Zeljka Markic of Croatia explained in a much acclaimed speech at the end of the Congress why the profamily fight strikes such a chord in former communist countries. "We in Croatia experienced three totalitarian states, and we do not want another. The state must protect the rights of women to work and also to have children. We have a right to our own political representatives who fight for our cause. We in Croatia are a small people. Our last fight for freedom was only 25 years ago, and at such a high price. Many sacrificed their lives for freedom, and now we want to be free, with our own values."

A newcomer to the scene was Brazil. The country's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has reversed the country's anti-life politics and declared that in future all public policy must be seen through the prism of the family. Dr Angela Vidal Gandra in the newly created role of First Secretary for the Family, gave a spirited speech pointing to the direct connection between household and public economics: it makes sense to support family life because where families thrive, the country and human rights prosper too. Vidal Gandra pointed out that the government has been elected to tackle Brazil's crisis of corruption and by promoting strong family life they are creating a forge for the ethical values which the country so badly needs. Married families work better and become more engaged with the common good. The Brazilian government recognises parents as primary educators, is encouraging them to talk to their own children about sexuality, and is about to give them freedom to home school. It is currently studying how to take better care of the old and infirm, and to strengthen intergenerational bonds. Another challenge is to find the best ways to help women put their families first while being free also to work outside the home.

Battling the opposition

If the tone of the Congress was upbeat, the opposition was equally strong. We pushed our way into the Congress building through police guards, and journalists circled round the "antis" outside, who formed themselves into a large demonstration on the Saturday when the Italian dignitaries addressed us. Salvini and his colleagues' speeches were pitched as much to those outside the hall as to us within, loudly protesting the fake news and downright lies with which they had been harassed for weeks and months beforehand. They objected to the accusation that the Congress had gathered in hate and was attached to far right politics. They also protested their freedom to speak out in favour of marriage and large families regardless of their personal lives. (Salvini is divorced and Gardini the mother of a single child born out of wedlock - the Antis cannot cope with pro-family ministers who have irregular family profiles themselves). "I have come straight from the ironing," declared the glamorous Gardini, targeting yet another lie, that profamily politics keep women from careers, whereas in fact good mothers bring invaluable experience to the workplace. "Family policy is medieval?" challenged a speaker from the Netherlands, "No, it is much older than that: it dates from the beginning of history."

The interrelationship between sexual licence and violence was a theme noted by several speakers. One of the most moving was from Don Fortunato Di Noto who spoke of the 85 million children who are currently victims, of sexual licence, trafficked, enslaved and aborted. He has been working among children for 30 years from his base in Sicily, which he helped in 1997 to become the first country in the world to have a Parliamentary motion against porn. He lamented that there are now some 3 million paedophilic websites and that there is a huge market in preteen porn. Fr Fortunato now has to travel with a bodyguard.

 

 

Faith as a necessary core to family revival

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco explained that in the sexual revolution it is always women and children who suffer most. We must be prepared to say this, and not act as though boys and girls face equal risks. He pointed to a general loss of the sense of the sacred which is also reflected in the decline of marriage but warned against being drawn ourselves into hostile attitudes. Just as our worship needs to be centred on the Other, so too our love must be other-centred and include in its embrace those whose morals we dislike. Crowds can represent stereotypes but not individual people. Listening to each person's point of view is the way to tenderise hearts and bring back civility. Just as the Jews in Old Testament times felt a constant tug towards paganism, so we all feel the tug to being self-centred. To combat this, we need to rely on God's grace: we will not do it on our own. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph added that, while our dealings with others must always be loving, we do need to discuss morality, because if we fear to mention it morality itself diminishes.

The Evangelical Rev Jim Garlow spoke of daring to use religious language in the public sphere, saying that we are much too cautious. The Genesis account of the human family has a particular beauty which draws people to a new understanding of truth. He pointed out that the first two chapters begin with the creation of male and female, then of marriage and then of procreation, whereas the enemies of truth attack in reverse order: abortion, redefinition of marriage and now the non-specificity of male and female. The Rev Garlow then gave a fascinating digest of the original Hebrew of Genesis. God is neither male nor female, but we are made in his image. The male and the female can thus only partly reflect the spectrum of God's image: they need each other to reflect the whole. This explains why Genesis comments that God does not find his initial creation of a-dam, humankind, good: Adam on his own has no capacity for relationship. And so God takes from Adam what we call a rib, but in the Hebrew is a full half of Adam, and creates Eve. With the creation of the female, the male is also transformed, and the Hebrew names show this. Thus it is that the male and female fit so well together because they belong together. The Rev Garlow went on to talk about how the name of God relates to the Hebrew names for man and woman, and to the fire between them, which can be either good or bad. He explained that he has seen insights from the Bible pierce the hearts of hardened atheists, and that his organisation now runs weekly bible studies in the UN, in Congress and in Europe.

Joe Grabowski, Executive Director of the International Organisation for the Family, said that religion contributes to public policy because it works from the inside, not making laws but remaking people. Legal reform is necessary, but more important still is the remodelling of the human heart on which civilization itself depends. He added that there were many lawyers active at the time of the Fall of Rome. The Duke of Anjou emphasised that a society without religion fills with ideologies and ideologies kill. Culture reaches equilibrium when the weak are supported but the strong are allowed to strive. John Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, voiced the longing of many present for clear moral teaching from church leaders. "When our religious leaders speak out, we all wake up."

Radicalism and its international hold

Nobody present underestimated the difficulties of turning society round. The clamour at the door from the Antis, and the hundreds of journalists in the room were a living reminder that campaigning for mothers and fathers and their children is now very controversial. There were many workshops covering specific issues, too many to enumerate here, though it is worth saying that the Italians contributed a strong case for showing how family values can be profitably lived out in family-run businesses (which make up 30% of Italian employment).

The starkest reminder of the strength and radicalism of the opposition was summed up by Sharon Slater, of Family Watch International. She described how agencies at the UN are targeting children to shape the minds and hearts of the next generation. The excerpts she read from the International technical guidance on sexuality education: an evidence-informed approach produced by UNESCO and others in January 2018 were as horrifying as the WHO's earlier WHO Standards for Sex Ed in Europe 2010. She explained that International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), with its 65,000 service points in countries worldwide, is the silent partner behind all these agencies. The money it makes out of providing contraception, abortion and transgender treatments is colossal, and the younger the children the more the profit.

Tori Black, of United Families International, gave some background as to how the UN had come to be involved. When the United Nations was designed, its creators thought that there should be a more constructive way to keep peace than just by stopping bombs. It would therefore be part of the United Nations' brief also to promote a higher way of living, in which the dignity and flourishing of each person, and especially children and women, would be protected. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was originally set up in 1946 to provide food and medicine to children and mothers devastated by World War ll. In 1948 the UN Charter of Human Rights, which spoke strongly of the family as the first cell of society, was adopted. There followed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979, and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC0) in 1989. Unfortunately, these good intentions have been obstructed by radical feminists and others who have infiltrated the very organs which were originally designed to promote religious freedom and family life. Powerful bureaucrats promote their humanist ideas in universities, especially in the West, and mould the way future UN delegates think. It took decades for this subversion to take root, and we are now seeing the results.

What can be done

The Antis work globally, and to be successful the pro-family movement must do likewise. It was to facilitate this that the WCF was created and throughout the conference common problems and solutions were aired. Ignacio Arsuaga, President of CitizenGo, kicked off by saying activists should learn to work globally as well as nationally, because united efforts transcend anything that can be done by one country on its own. We have to be prepared to knock out political correctness and confront enemies however powerful - and we can expect unpleasant threats. It is better to redirect than to destroy civil structures wherever possible, taking care to elect the right people and transforming the environment of those who are in power. To do this, one needs to mobilise people, lots of people, and make the liberals fear us. And for this we need to pray, trust in God and show our truth to the world.

Levan Vasadze said that holding a Congress will itself change the host country, as WCF X had changed Georgia. He pointed to other notable turning points in 2016: the election of Donald Trump in the US, which had relieved sodomizing pressure on smaller countries, the rise of new conservative leaders in Europe, and growing opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberals. Now we must insist on replacing human rights with the rights of the human family, which will entail a reversal of our thought processes. We need to develop an affirmative narrative with the help of professionals in the field, and work hard to support whichever country is best able to take the lead in putting it into operation. Rights should always be accompanied by obligations, and theocentrism replace anthropism, so bringing God back into the centre of life. We are not seeking to become globalists, but to take pride in our own national identities while working constructively together.

Christine Vollmer of the Latin American Alliance for the Family showed how important it is that we who care about the family and the future of society also target the young, but with the correct values. Using the example of her homeland in Venezuela (and it was more poignant that I was reading her address in her absence there), she explained how she had watched a prosperous country with everything going for it tumble into chaos because true education had been neglected and the leaders had become greedy at the expense of the poor. Her own school programme Alive to the World was giving back to children the moral framework which many had lost through bad schooling and the breakdown of family and religion. It was already having remarkable results in Venezuela and was being promoted successfully in other languages worldwide and is available for translation.

Dr Marie Phillipe, Founder of SOS Détresse, volunteered to share their expertise when she pointed out the simple things which can save a child from abortion. Her organisation, which is saving 1,500 babies a year, uses a web and facebook page which appear as though they might belong to an abortion agency. The women are asked to ring in, and it is on the phone that they are guided away from aborting their baby, which they are usually contemplating under pressure from the baby's father or their own family. The young mothers know that what they are considering is wrong, and a reassuring word: "Of course you can be a mum", "they will be proud of you when they see the baby", can turn the situation, sometimes with practical help. Contraception is not an answer: 90% of women who call their helpline are on the Pill.

Sharon Slater turned to the good news at the end of her chilling report on Comprehensive Sex Education. Family Watch International have made some excellent resources available free of charge on the website: https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/sexedreport/. First of these is the just published report Re-examining the evidence for Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools 2019: A Global Research Review by Stan E Weed and Irene H Ericksen. Second, is Slater's own documentary film The War on Children: Exposing the Comprehensive Sex Education Agenda and third, also on the website, is a petition against CSE in US schools. Slater commented that families are rising up. They are seeing it at the UN, and with united action the sexual liberals can be defeated.

There were many other individuals and organisations offering their resources, of which I can mention the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has made its research available on an easily inserted flash drive, and Denise Mountenay who was promoting the acclaimed documentary film Hush, which explains the links between abortion and damage to the mother, including breast cancer, future infertility and preterm births and other serious damage to women's physical and mental health. It is available on DVD, online or to show in a cinema.

Those of us who were lucky enough to stay for the Sunday night were also given the European premiere of Unplanned, the film about Abby Johnson and her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to prolife activist. The film is amazing. It brings out abortion's horror by focusing on what the mothers endure but it manages to do this within the tenderness of a love story. It is a film will change minds on abortion while leaving behind it a warm memory. In showing it to us, the producer, Keith Mason, also gave us a challenge: that we help him build up an audience in our separate countries so that the film gets into commercial cinemas as it has in the States. He welcomes contacts and suggestions, and is prepared to begin with privately arranged group viewings. His email address is: keith@unplannedmovie.com.

[CF News] 2277.M1

n agency. The women are asked to ring in, and it is on the phone that they are guided away from aborting their baby, which they are usually contemplating under pressure from the baby's father or their own family. The young mothers know that what they are considering is wrong, and a reassuring word: "Of course you can be a mum", "they will be proud of you when they see the baby", can turn the situation, sometimes with practical help. Contraception is not an answer: 90% of women who call their helpline are on the Pill.

Sharon Slater turned to the good news at the end of her chilling report on Comprehensive Sex Education. Family Watch International have made some excellent resources available free of charge on the website: https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/sexedreport/. First of these is the just published report Re-examining the evidence for Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools 2019: A Global Research Review by Stan E Weed and Irene H Ericksen. Second, is Slater's own documentary film The War on Children: Exposing the Comprehensive Sex Education Agenda and third, also on the website, is a petition against CSE in US schools. Slater commented that families are rising up. They are seeing it at the UN, and with united action the sexual liberals can be defeated.

There were many other individuals and organisations offering their resources, of which I can mention the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has made its research available on an easily inserted flash drive, and Denise Mountenay who was promoting the acclaimed documentary film Hush, which explains the links between abortion and damage to the mother, including breast cancer, future infertility and preterm births and other serious damage to women's physical and mental health. It is available on DVD, online or to show in a cinema.

Those of us who were lucky enough to stay for the Sunday night were also given the European premiere of Unplanned, the film about Abby Johnson and her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to prolife activist. The film is amazing. It brings out abortion's horror by focusing on what the mothers endure but it manages to do this within the tenderness of a love story. It is a film will change minds on abortion while leaving behind it a warm memory. In showing it to us, the producer, Keith Mason, also gave us a challenge: that we help him build up an audience in our separate countries so that the film gets into commercial cinemas as it has in the States. He welcomes contacts and suggestions, and is prepared to begin with privately arranged group viewings. His email address is: keith@unplannedmovie.com.

[CF News] 2277.M1

ongress. Turley began by showing that, despite the contrary environment in which most fighters for the family work, the pointers to a different future are already there. Forward looking scholars write of the "post secular age" to take account of the biggest worldwide revival of religious practice the world has ever seen. And with religious practice comes greater interest in the family and larger numbers of children: in the US, religious women are 30% more fertile than secular ones. Even within two generations the political effects will be seen, with postmodernists failing to reproduce themselves at the rate of people of faith in many countries of the world - France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, were examples, while Georgia, which hosted WCFXI in 2016, has swung from having one of the lowest to one of the highest fertility rates in Eastern Europe.

Not only are we winning, but the secular liberals are panicking and there is nothing that they can do to stop the change in culture that will come with these demographics.

Another tangible sign of progress was our meeting hall. This was in a 17th Century palazzo in the centre of Verona given to the World Congress by the Mayor of Verona, free of charge. The World Congress movement is now supported by leading politicians in host countries. In Verona we were addressed by Matteo Salvini, the Vice Premier, by Elisabetta Gardini, MEP and Leader of Forza Italia in the Eurropean Parliament, and by the Ministers for Education and for Family and Disabilities. Massimo Gandolfini, Founder of the Family Day, remarked that just four years before holding such a Congress in Italy would have been a pipedream.

Leading examples from other countries

Katalin Novak, Hungarian Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, explained how the Budapest WCF of 2017 had fed into government policies. Her speech outlined eye-watering incentives for young people to marry and have children, including a €35,000 unallocated loan which becomes non-reimbursable with a third child, and a €35,000 housing grant payable to the mother in the first trimester of her first pregnancy. The Hungarians have looked at the typical hurdles modern couples face in marrying and having families and have targeted assistance accordingly, producing help e.g. for childcare and even for 7-seater cars. Mothers of four children are excused income tax for the rest of their lives. What is more, their measures are beginning to bite. In the last few years, the number of marriages has begun to increase, divorces diminish and the fertility rate to rise. Levan Vazadze, President of the Tbilisi WCF of 2016, spoke of similar improvements in Georgia.

Eastern Europeans in general had a strong presence at the Congress. The Moldovans, hosts of WCF XII in 2018, handed over the baton to the Italians in the opening ceremonies, while the Russians had a delegation of some twenty strong. Zeljka Markic of Croatia explained in a much acclaimed speech at the end of the Congress why the profamily fight strikes such a chord in former communist countries. "We in Croatia experienced three totalitarian states, and we do not want another. The state must protect the rights of women to work and also to have children. We have a right to our own political representatives who fight for our cause. We in Croatia are a small people. Our last fight for freedom was only 25 years ago, and at such a high price. Many sacrificed their lives for freedom, and now we want to be free, with our own values."

A newcomer to the scene was Brazil. The country's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has reversed the country's anti-life politics and declared that in future all public policy must be seen through the prism of the family. Dr Angela Vidal Gandra in the newly created role of First Secretary for the Family, gave a spirited speech pointing to the direct connection between household and public economics: it makes sense to support family life because where families thrive, the country and human rights prosper too. Vidal Gandra pointed out that the government has been elected to tackle Brazil's crisis of corruption and by promoting strong family life they are creating a forge for the ethical values which the country so badly needs. Married families work better and become more engaged with the common good. The Brazilian government recognises parents as primary educators, is encouraging them to talk to their own children about sexuality, and is about to give them freedom to home school. It is currently studying how to take better care of the old and infirm, and to strengthen intergenerational bonds. Another challenge is to find the best ways to help women put their families first while being free also to work outside the home.

Battling the opposition

If the tone of the Congress was upbeat, the opposition was equally strong. We pushed our way into the Congress building through police guards, and journalists circled round the "antis" outside, who formed themselves into a large demonstration on the Saturday when the Italian dignitaries addressed us. Salvini and his colleagues' speeches were pitched as much to those outside the hall as to us within, loudly protesting the fake news and downright lies with which they had been harassed for weeks and months beforehand. They objected to the accusation that the Congress had gathered in hate and was attached to far right politics. They also protested their freedom to speak out in favour of marriage and large families regardless of their personal lives. (Salvini is divorced and Gardini the mother of a single child born out of wedlock - the Antis cannot cope with pro-family ministers who have irregular family profiles themselves). "I have come straight from the ironing," declared the glamorous Gardini, targeting yet another lie, that profamily politics keep women from careers, whereas in fact good mothers bring invaluable experience to the workplace. "Family policy is medieval?" challenged a speaker from the Netherlands, "No, it is much older than that: it dates from the beginning of history."

The interrelationship between sexual licence and violence was a theme noted by several speakers. One of the most moving was from Don Fortunato Di Noto who spoke of the 85 million children who are currently victims, of sexual licence, trafficked, enslaved and aborted. He has been working among children for 30 years from his base in Sicily, which he helped in 1997 to become the first country in the world to have a Parliamentary motion against porn. He lamented that there are now some 3 million paedophilic websites and that there is a huge market in preteen porn. Fr Fortunato now has to travel with a bodyguard.

 

 

Faith as a necessary core to family revival

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco explained that in the sexual revolution it is always women and children who suffer most. We must be prepared to say this, and not act as though boys and girls face equal risks. He pointed to a general loss of the sense of the sacred which is also reflected in the decline of marriage but warned against being drawn ourselves into hostile attitudes. Just as our worship needs to be centred on the Other, so too our love must be other-centred and include in its embrace those whose morals we dislike. Crowds can represent stereotypes but not individual people. Listening to each person's point of view is the way to tenderise hearts and bring back civility. Just as the Jews in Old Testament times felt a constant tug towards paganism, so we all feel the tug to being self-centred. To combat this, we need to rely on God's grace: we will not do it on our own. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph added that, while our dealings with others must always be loving, we do need to discuss morality, because if we fear to mention it morality itself diminishes.

The Evangelical Rev Jim Garlow spoke of daring to use religious language in the public sphere, saying that we are much too cautious. The Genesis account of the human family has a particular beauty which draws people to a new understanding of truth. He pointed out that the first two chapters begin with the creation of male and female, then of marriage and then of procreation, whereas the enemies of truth attack in reverse order: abortion, redefinition of marriage and now the non-specificity of male and female. The Rev Garlow then gave a fascinating digest of the original Hebrew of Genesis. God is neither male nor female, but we are made in his image. The male and the female can thus only partly reflect the spectrum of God's image: they need each other to reflect the whole. This explains why Genesis comments that God does not find his initial creation of a-dam, humankind, good: Adam on his own has no capacity for relationship. And so God takes from Adam what we call a rib, but in the Hebrew is a full half of Adam, and creates Eve. With the creation of the female, the male is also transformed, and the Hebrew names show this. Thus it is that the male and female fit so well together because they belong together. The Rev Garlow went on to talk about how the name of God relates to the Hebrew names for man and woman, and to the fire between them, which can be either good or bad. He explained that he has seen insights from the Bible pierce the hearts of hardened atheists, and that his organisation now runs weekly bible studies in the UN, in Congress and in Europe.

Joe Grabowski, Executive Director of the International Organisation for the Family, said that religion contributes to public policy because it works from the inside, not making laws but remaking people. Legal reform is necessary, but more important still is the remodelling of the human heart on which civilization itself depends. He added that there were many lawyers active at the time of the Fall of Rome. The Duke of Anjou emphasised that a society without religion fills with ideologies and ideologies kill. Culture reaches equilibrium when the weak are supported but the strong are allowed to strive. John Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, voiced the longing of many present for clear moral teaching from church leaders. "When our religious leaders speak out, we all wake up."

Radicalism and its international hold

Nobody present underestimated the difficulties of turning society round. The clamour at the door from the Antis, and the hundreds of journalists in the room were a living reminder that campaigning for mothers and fathers and their children is now very controversial. There were many workshops covering specific issues, too many to enumerate here, though it is worth saying that the Italians contributed a strong case for showing how family values can be profitably lived out in family-run businesses (which make up 30% of Italian employment).

The starkest reminder of the strength and radicalism of the opposition was summed up by Sharon Slater, of Family Watch International. She described how agencies at the UN are targeting children to shape the minds and hearts of the next generation. The excerpts she read from the International technical guidance on sexuality education: an evidence-informed approach produced by UNESCO and others in January 2018 were as horrifying as the WHO's earlier WHO Standards for Sex Ed in Europe 2010. She explained that International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), with its 65,000 service points in countries worldwide, is the silent partner behind all these agencies. The money it makes out of providing contraception, abortion and transgender treatments is colossal, and the younger the children the more the profit.

Tori Black, of United Families International, gave some background as to how the UN had come to be involved. When the United Nations was designed, its creators thought that there should be a more constructive way to keep peace than just by stopping bombs. It would therefore be part of the United Nations' brief also to promote a higher way of living, in which the dignity and flourishing of each person, and especially children and women, would be protected. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was originally set up in 1946 to provide food and medicine to children and mothers devastated by World War ll. In 1948 the UN Charter of Human Rights, which spoke strongly of the family as the first cell of society, was adopted. There followed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979, and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC0) in 1989. Unfortunately, these good intentions have been obstructed by radical feminists and others who have infiltrated the very organs which were originally designed to promote religious freedom and family life. Powerful bureaucrats promote their humanist ideas in universities, especially in the West, and mould the way future UN delegates think. It took decades for this subversion to take root, and we are now seeing the results.

What can be done

The Antis work globally, and to be successful the pro-family movement must do likewise. It was to facilitate this that the WCF was created and throughout the conference common problems and solutions were aired. Ignacio Arsuaga, President of CitizenGo, kicked off by saying activists should learn to work globally as well as nationally, because united efforts transcend anything that can be done by one country on its own. We have to be prepared to knock out political correctness and confront enemies however powerful - and we can expect unpleasant threats. It is better to redirect than to destroy civil structures wherever possible, taking care to elect the right people and transforming the environment of those who are in power. To do this, one needs to mobilise people, lots of people, and make the liberals fear us. And for this we need to pray, trust in God and show our truth to the world.

Levan Vasadze said that holding a Congress will itself change the host country, as WCF X had changed Georgia. He pointed to other notable turning points in 2016: the election of Donald Trump in the US, which had relieved sodomizing pressure on smaller countries, the rise of new conservative leaders in Europe, and growing opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberals. Now we must insist on replacing human rights with the rights of the human family, which will entail a reversal of our thought processes. We need to develop an affirmative narrative with the help of professionals in the field, and work hard to support whichever country is best able to take the lead in putting it into operation. Rights should always be accompanied by obligations, and theocentrism replace anthropism, so bringing God back into the centre of life. We are not seeking to become globalists, but to take pride in our own national identities while working constructively together.

Christine Vollmer of the Latin American Alliance for the Family showed how important it is that we who care about the family and the future of society also target the young, but with the correct values. Using the example of her homeland in Venezuela (and it was more poignant that I was reading her address in her absence there), she explained how she had watched a prosperous country with everything going for it tumble into chaos because true education had been neglected and the leaders had become greedy at the expense of the poor. Her own school programme Alive to the World was giving back to children the moral framework which many had lost through bad schooling and the breakdown of family and religion. It was already having remarkable results in Venezuela and was being promoted successfully in other languages worldwide and is available for translation.

Dr Marie Phillipe, Founder of SOS Détresse, volunteered to share their expertise when she pointed out the simple things which can save a child from abortion. Her organisation, which is saving 1,500 babies a year, uses a web and facebook page which appear as though they might belong to an abortion agency. The women are asked to ring in, and it is on the phone that they are guided away from aborting their baby, which they are usually contemplating under pressure from the baby's father or their own family. The young mothers know that what they are considering is wrong, and a reassuring word: "Of course you can be a mum", "they will be proud of you when they see the baby", can turn the situation, sometimes with practical help. Contraception is not an answer: 90% of women who call their helpline are on the Pill.

Sharon Slater turned to the good news at the end of her chilling report on Comprehensive Sex Education. Family Watch International have made some excellent resources available free of charge on the website: https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/sexedreport/. First of these is the just published report Re-examining the evidence for Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools 2019: A Global Research Review by Stan E Weed and Irene H Ericksen. Second, is Slater's own documentary film The War on Children: Exposing the Comprehensive Sex Education Agenda and third, also on the website, is a petition against CSE in US schools. Slater commented that families are rising up. They are seeing it at the UN, and with united action the sexual liberals can be defeated.

There were many other individuals and organisations offering their resources, of which I can mention the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has made its research available on an easily inserted flash drive, and Denise Mountenay who was promoting the acclaimed documentary film Hush, which explains the links between abortion and damage to the mother, including breast cancer, future infertility and preterm births and other serious damage to women's physical and mental health. It is available on DVD, online or to show in a cinema.

Those of us who were lucky enough to stay for the Sunday night were also given the European premiere of Unplanned, the film about Abby Johnson and her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to prolife activist. The film is amazing. It brings out abortion's horror by focusing on what the mothers endure but it manages to do this within the tenderness of a love story. It is a film will change minds on abortion while leaving behind it a warm memory. In showing it to us, the producer, Keith Mason, also gave us a challenge: that we help him build up an audience in our separate countries so that the film gets into commercial cinemas as it has in the States. He welcomes contacts and suggestions, and is prepared to begin with privately arranged group viewings. His email address is: keith@unplannedmovie.com.

[CF News] 2277.M1