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Last November the Presidents and Chairmen of 60 pro-life and pro-family
organizations met in Paris to act as a preparatory meeting for this World
Congress of Families. Our goals were three; to prepare for this Congress, to
learn from experts about the challenges facing European families and policy
makers, and to form a coalition of groups willing to work in concert at the
European institutions. I am here to report we were successful in all of our
goals and to send you greetings from our meeting.
Every new human being has the right to be protected, nourished, and
defended from the first moment of existence.
Every family has the right to be protected as the natural and fundamental
group unit of society. This is a fundamental task of the State.
Every child has the right to be raised in a home with his or her father
and mother, in order to experience the love between their parents and the
benefits of the two parent family. The child is best protected there and is most
vulnerable when the marriage of his parents is missing, and it is unjust to
deprive children of their right to be reared in the family that is theirs.
Every person has the right to worship God in the way his or her conscience
dictates, and parents have the right to teach their children to worship and to
educate their children in accordance with their convictions. Love, loyalty and
perseverance in the tasks of marriage and family are most nurtured by each
person’s intimate relationship with their Creator.
The family is a gift from the Creator and the perfect institution for the
expression of the complementarity of the sexes. It is in marriage, even
difficult marriages, that the parents will reach their potential to love and
become free and responsible collaborators with God in creation. It is, in turn,
through this free and visible love between the parents that their children are
consoled and nurtured, and best protected.
By calling upon family members to sacrifice for each other, the family
teaches the child how to be a future family leader and a member of society, and
prepares the child for his life as a parent and as an adult citizen of a
democracy.
Europe, in its historical roots, has a culture unique to the world. Over
the centuries Europe flourished only when it preserved and promoted the dignity
of the human person, and when it recognized and promoted the family, based on
marriage between one man and one woman, as its foundational institution.
Our coalition is resolved and we humbly ask all of you to work together so
that:
Human life is protected in national and EU law from conception to natural
death;
Family policy is at the center and driving force of all European social
policy;
The institution of marriage is promoted and legally protected as the
proper context for the sexual expression of the love between a man and a woman
and for the rearing of their children;
Every child’s right to be reared in the married-parents family, and the
right of every man and woman to marriage, are legally recognized above all other
arrangements and human relationships in law, policy, and social incentives.
The root of all these ideas lies in the traditional European orientation
to the Creator. These pillars of European political culture will only remain
strong if Europe and Europeans remain ever fixed to Him.
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